


Lucifer's Child

by coplins



Series: Family Matters [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Age Difference, Breeding Kink, Cheating, Claire is 17, Claire/Lucifer is the main pairing here, Consensual Underage Sex, Daddy Issues, Dark Lucifer (Supernatural), Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, F/M, FRENCH SWEARING, French not translated since Lucifer doesn't understand it., Grief/Mourning, Hurt Claire Novak, Hurt Lucifer (Supernatural), Hurt/Comfort, Invasion of Privacy, M/M, Michael/Lucifer - Freeform, Physical Abuse, Sadism, Sibling Incest, Swearing, Teenage Rebellion, Underage Drinking, Underage Drug Use, Underage Smoking, Unhealthy Relationships, Unplanned Pregnancy, Verbal Abuse, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-05-20 18:55:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 40,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14900102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coplins/pseuds/coplins
Summary: Lucifer, Michael, and Dean have managed to build their happily ever after. The Williams business has started to recuperate from Marlon's death, Mike's leading the American division, Dean's bouncing around the country or world either charming business leaders or conducting industrial espionage, and Luci... Well. Luci is running his plant nursery and working his assassin gig at the side. Lucifer should be happy. Everything is perfect.Justperfect. Except it's not, and he's not. Then Castiel's body double James Novak and his wife die in a tragic accident and Castiel does the honourable thing and adopts their orphaned daughter. Claire Novak isn't happy with the arrangement. She is doing everything she can to make that clear. So when she comes to study in the States and ends up living with the trio, Lucifer isn't overjoyed. As if their household needs another inhabitant with a truckload of issues. With short skirts and tight clothes to boot! Things can only go downhill from here.





	1. Claire Novak

**Author's Note:**

> This story will only make sense if you've read 'Meet the Family' already. If you liked their happy ending in that fic, don't read this one. It helps if you've read 'Ain't no Grave' too.
> 
> That said, this story shows Lucifer acting in a way that can be triggering for anyone who's lived in an abusive relationship or grown up with abusive parents. He appears significantly darker here than in Meet the Family solely because here we see through his point of view, and before we got to see him from Dean's point of view. When he told Dean he's a monster, he meant it and we'll be seeing it clearly here.
> 
> This story is about Lucifer and Claire, but also about Lucifer's grief and very complicated feelings about his father. This is about two floundering souls coming together to help each other in a very unhealthy way. Lucifer and Claire's affair will be a temporary thing and will eventually turn into a friendship. But beware - Luci will cheat. There are going to be sexual things happening between him and Claire. He will act in a very scary/abusive way at times. No sex will ever be forced or coerced from his side.
> 
> I've had this WIP for a while and since my dad died I've struggled with being able to write at all. For some reason, the writing flows fairly well for this one. I think it's due to this fic being about Claire and Lucifer mourning their fathers. I'm sorry other things are put on hold. I write on other WIPs too but then I only get out a couple of sentences at a time. So I'm starting to publish this for anyone who might want to read.
> 
>  
> 
> **PLEASE, DO SUGGEST TAGS IF YOU SEE THAT I'VE MISSED SOMETHING!**

_How the fuck did_ I _get saddled with the moody teenager?_

“I don’t see why she can’t go with you? I’m the least suited to care for kids out of the three of us,” Luci complains.

“Luci, don’t be a bitch. You’re a grown man and fully capable of caring for a teenager for a month.” Michael’s annoyance switches to earnestness and pleading. “Believe me, I’d love to take her along. I really would. You know I fare worst from being separated from you. Any company would be good. But I can hardly expect a seventeen-year-old girl to sit quietly and content through hours and hours of negotiations and meetings. And her school starts in two weeks.”

“Fuck sake. Couldn’t she have stayed in France? They’ve got good schools there too. Did she have to come here and burden us?”

Michael looks like he’s about to reprimand him sharply, but he’s forestalled by another voice thinned by the door.

“ _I can hear you, you know?_ ”

“That’s because you’re eavesdropping, jackass. I know perfectly well that our voices at this volume aren’t heard unless you press your ear to the door. Don’t like it? _Go back to France_.”

Mikey winces then fixates him with a glare he refuses to yield to. He _knows_ he’s in the wrong here. That doesn’t mean he’s going to fold without a tantrum. It's not like Dean's around to whip him in place. That's right. _Dean_. 

“Why can't Dean take her?” It's a dumbfuck question and he knows perfectly well why. 

“Luci, stop acting like such a moron.”

Dean's away on a mission. He'd probably be delighted to have a wayward teen tag along. He'd probably get her to help him too and a seventeen-year-old does _not_ need to learn his trade. “You know he's cheating on us, right?”

Michael rolls his eyes and crosses his arms in front of his chest. “Oh, gods. Not _this_ again. He’s _not_ cheating on us.”

“He is. I can _feel it_.”

Michael gives him a fed up stare. “Okay. Let’s say that he is. _So what?_ I honestly don’t care if he blows some steam off while he’s away. He always comes back to us. _Always_.”

“Are you insane? Are you really okay with sharing him?”

“No. Not particularly. But think about it, Luce. We are using him like a honeytrap more often than not. He says yes even when he doesn’t want to do it. These last years we’ve had him seduce three women. _Three_. You know, those times when he comes home either all pissy or closed off, goes directly to the shower to scrub himself raw for an hour or two, then demands us to fuck his brains out or for you to take him to the playroom. Those times. So if he wants to dawdle a bit on the side to keep his spirits up, then I’ll tolerate it.”

Luci had no problem with Dean seducing ladies, mostly because he knew how much Dean loathed when it had to be brought to the physical level. In fact, he’d even enjoyed fantasising about it several times. They were no threat. But if Dean was cheating he was certain it must be someone who’d gotten to his heart―meaning, the biggest threat of them all―because he can’t imagine Dean going behind their backs just for sex. His prime suspect is Cas. Cas and Dean got along far too well for his liking, and Cas’ gaze looked way too thirsty when he looked at Dean.

Not that he had any proof.

He makes a petulant noise of displeasure.

“The discussion is over, Luci. You’re over forty years old. You can handle a teenager for a month,” Mikey adds, declaring this childish fight done with.

“Fine.”

Michael turns to walk towards the door.

“Mikey?” 

Michael stops and turns around with an annoyed expression. “What?”

“Take Mave with you. That way you won’t have to be alone. He’s perfectly happy running around greeting people in offices, and will sleep in his crate on meetings. I’ll be having my hands full anyway.”

Michael’s face softens. He walks up to Luci and wraps his arms around his waist. “Thank you. You know I’d rather stay here…”

“I know.” He gives Mikey a chaste kiss and nuzzles his hair before letting go.

Michael gives him a smile, lets go and walks towards the door. He opens it, and the root of all of Luci’s problems stumbles backwards with a small yelp. She gives Mikey a rueful look. He nods to her as he passes by. Once he's gone she slips inside and leans on the wall beside the door, hands behind her back, legs crossed at the ankles, chin tilted upward, and lip pulled up on one side to show teeth in a faintly disgusted smirk. “So… you and me now, huh, Ducon?” Her blond hair is braided on one side of her scalp in several braids, hanging loose on the rest of her head. It looks good. Or would have, hadn’t she made the braids herself and missed a couple of strands and done it sloppy where she couldn’t quite reach. His fingers are always itching to correct it.

“ _Yay_ ,” he answers sarcastically. Her clothes… he has issues with them. She dresses in a mix of grunge, punk, and streetwalker. Like today her jeans are more holes than fabric, and what fabric there is might as well be painted on those curvy hips, it’s so tight. The plaid shirt hangs open over a flimsy white top. Her breasts are small and perky enough not to need a bra. She wears one anyway because women are strange that way.

She gives him an unimpressed, flat stare from blue eyes ringed by too much sooty makeup, making them pop. And her petulant lips are always glossy from her wide collection of different flavour lip smackers. Every fucking day he wants to find out what she tastes like that particular day.

Herein lies the real problem.

Michael and Dean, they look at her and see a child. 

He looks at her and sees a pussy that hits all his buttons, not only body wise―though she’s got one fucking fine body―but the tragic backstory, the attitude, resilience, rebellion, and sass. He lacks the moral filter that should make him feel that it’s wrong to fuck a teenager when you’re over forty. His age range is the vague ‘old enough to want me’ which in tragic cases could start already somewhere around thirteen, and lacks an upper limit.

Of course he ‘knows’ it’s wrong. Just like he ‘knows’ it’s wrong to fuck his brother, to kill or torture innocent people, and so on and so on. Bottom line is, he. Doesn’t. Feel. It. 

What’s holding him back isn’t a sense of innate morality, (Except for when it comes to animals. Like 90% of his empathy goes to them, unlike most psychos like him.) but rather, what consequences his actions would bring. Oh, and Dean. Dean’s holding him back.

But Dean’s not here, now is he?

“Is Dean a whore?” she asks.

“I will slap you, you know.” 

She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms in front of her chest. “I’m just asking because it sounded like you’re pimping him out, espèce d'emmerdeur.”

He sighs, tempted to mimic her eyeroll and pose but constrains himself. Her constant French insults did nothing to quell his dirty thoughts about her. On the contrary, it’s sexy when Dean speaks French, and it’s sexy when she does it. Despite him understanding the geist without the words. “He’s a persuader and gatherer of information.”

“Like a spy?”

He grunts. That’s exactly what Dean is at the moment. A handler and researcher for an assassin, and a corporate spy. He’s also officially an advisor. It had been mostly a bullshit title, until recently when he suddenly started to come with absolutely brilliant input in business strategy. It’s a big reason he suspects Dean and Cas of fucking. Whoever fed Dean these tips and tidbits have complete insight in how the Williams corporations work. Cas could be feeding Dean ideas during pillow talk, that Dean took with him to Mikey, pretending to have come up with them himself. “Yes, Claire,” he answers patiently. “Like a spy. But on the right side of legal,” he lies. Hah! That’s likely. Everything Dean did these days is as legal as the power of his smile, that’s to say―not. He’d always been good looking and charming, but undercover work and negotiations had honed his charm skills to an art.

“When will he be back?”

“In a month.”

She groans, showing exactly how she feels about being alone with Luci for a full month. “You know, I could stay with Sam and Jess. I wouldn’t have to be a burden to you,” she suggests.

“No.” There were alternatives, sure. The problem was that she, Claire Novak, is a mess. She’s been living with them for one month already and they’d already caught her smoking weed and drinking, sneaking out to party, and causing general mayhem.

Her father, James Novak, had tragically passed away in his sleep along with his wife, in a gas leak accident. Since James had been employed as Cas’ body double, Cas had acted like the stand-up guy he could be, and adopted Claire, who’d survived since she was at a sleepover at the time. Claire had not handled it well to come to live with a stranger who looked so much like her dad but was nothing like him. Luci suspected she’d been slipping already before it happened, and the circumstances had just made it worse. Almost a year of fighting with Cas had gone by, then she’d expressed a wish to study in the US. The original plan was that she’d live with Naomi at the family estate, but Naomi had fallen ill and was hospitalized for God knows how long. So instead Luci, Mikey, and Dean had been saddled with their very own live-in cockblock. Mikey had to sleep in a separate room to hide that he and Luci were lovers as well. Or he had, until Dean ran out of patience and gone, ‘Peaches, Nick’s my awesome husband. Mike is my equally awesome boyfriend. I’m gonna keep having them both in my bed at the same time. If that’s a problem to you, _deal with it_.’

She’d looked dubious and countered ‘If they’re both so awesome, why didn’t you marry them both?’

‘I would, but it’s illegal.’

‘Not in some states.’

‘Not if you’re straight, no. But imagine me going _Excuse me, Mr. bigoted conservative lawmaker. Thanks for the newly instated marriage rights an’ all, but, um, I want two? That’s not going to be a problem, is it? No?_ ’

Claire, the little cockteasing bitch had just laughed and decided that Dean was the best human currently alive or something. They got along just fine. It hadn’t taken them long to develop some kind of Father/Brother/Partner-in crime type of relationship that was frightfully indecent and hard to define. If there’d been ever a shred of bi-ness in Dean, Luci would accuse him of all the dirty thoughts he himself is having. But Dean’s as gay as they come.

Like when Cas had come to visit, and after a considerable argument, Claire had gone full innocent lolita and plopped herself down in Dean’s lap while looking at Cas with wide eyes and with a sweet pout around her lollipop. She’d said, ‘But Cas, Dean’s my daddy now.’

Dean, like the deadpan little shit he is, cradled her, one hand on her fishnet stocking clad thigh just below her short leather skirt, the other around her slim waist, and went ‘That’s right, Peach, you’re daddy’s good little girl’, then proceeded to pluck her lollipop straight from her mouth and suck the candy ball right off the stick.

Allegedly, Cas had gone white, then green, then red, then purple. Luci had missed that piece of entertainment because he had to leave the room to hide his boner.

And now he’s saddled with little Miss fuck-me-please alone for a month.

“You’re coming with me to work during the days so I can keep an eye on you,” he informs her.

“ _What?_ What the hell am I supposed to do at a flower shop all day?” she protests indignantly.

“ _Work_.”

“Why? You’re millionaires!”

“Because _you’re_ the one always going ‘you’re not my family’, you little leech. So you’re working for your bed and board. And when school starts you’re going to _study_ for bed and boarding or we’re shipping you right back to Cas.”

“Come on! I’ve just lost my parents. I’m depressed,” she tries. 

It’s been a year since they died, and working might actually be a good way for her to find her way back to something akin to normalcy. Let her be the one to endure Annie’s incessant chatter. He points at the doorway. “So go cry in your room if you’re so fucking depressed. I was in the army for 17 years. It was my fucking job to kill parents. _I don’t care._ ” He does care. But he’s seen her use this excuse to get everything from new expensive clothes to not have to clean her room. She wants coddling, she can go to someone else.

“Espèce de sale enculé de fils de pute!” Claire spits at him, then leaves the room, giving him the finger.

_Oh yes. This is going to be a fun ride. Perfect. Juuuust perfect..._

* * *


	2. Work shoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luci and Claire are left alone. Claire is uncooperative.

He hears her alarm go off when he passes her door to go shower.

He hears it again after he’s showered on his way back. He knocks on her door. “Claire! The upstairs shower’s free now,” he yells before heading to get dressed.

He gets dressed and goes down to make breakfast. When it’s made he goes upstairs again. Claire’s door’s still shut and he can’t hear the shower going. He knocks on her door. “Claire! Breakfast’s ready! We leave in 45 minutes!”

“ _Go away!_ ”

_Oh, good. She’s awake._

“45 minutes!” he repeats and goes downstairs to eat breakfast and read the newspaper.

20 minutes to go Claire’s still not come down. Luci goes upstairs and knocks. No answer. “Fuck sake,” he mutters. He tries the handle and finds it locked. He makes a frustrated noise and goes to fetch his lockpicks. He picks the lock, finds Claire deeply asleep, sprawled all over her bed on her stomach. “Claire, time to get up.”

No reaction. He goes to the bed and shakes her. “Wake up. Time to get ready to go.”

Still nothing but a soft snore.

_Bet she’s faking it to get away from having to come._

He leaves her room, fetches a bucket in the cleaning closet, fills it with ice cold water and goes back to her room. 

He’s a good guy. He gives her a final warning. “Claire. Wake up. _Now_.”

No reaction.

_Whelp. Suit yourself, young lady._

He dumps the water right over her.

She flies out of bed with a high pitched shriek. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy the wet T-shirt display going on when she jumps up and down flapping her hands in panic. 

“Get dressed. We’re leaving in 15 minutes,” he patiently informs her.

“ _Connard de fils de pute enculé de ta mère!_ ” Claire shouts at his back as he turns to leave.

“15 minutes. You can eat breakfast and do your makeup in the car,” he counters without turning back.

15 minutes later she emerges, stomping her way down the stairs with a dark glower. She’s wearing a grey T-shirt, the holy (Hah!) jeans, and a leather jacket. All topped up with…

“No, no, no. Are you really going to wear those shoes?”

“ _Connard_ ,” she spits at him, giving him yet another one finger salute.

“I’m just saying, you’re going to regret wearing pumps with heels that high. Don’t you have a pair of Converse with angsty pentagrams drawn on in ink or something? That would get the teenage rebellion across just as well.”

She scowls at him but doesn’t answer.

“Fair enough. Come along. I’ve got your breakfast right here.” He wiggles the paper bag and to-go cup of coffee to cheer her up. Nope. Angry glower it is.

_Lovely start of the day._

* * *

He introduces Claire to the rest of the staff, telling them she'll be working extra from time to time. They're one man down due to Miriam having the flu and everyone is relieved, giving her a nice, warm greeting. She _can_ play nice, which she proves by smiling shyly and shaking hands. He pairs her with Annie to teach her the job since Annie is wickedly efficient even while chatting away. That, and because Annie would plague _him_ with her chatter otherwise. 

He keeps away, working in the plant nursery, casting glances towards Claire in the store section to see how she's doing. He can see her laugh and smile and actually do work, unlike some teens who come looking for a job and then stand around like fucking idiots just looking on while they're shown what needs to be done. 

He goes to check on Claire when she's been restocking pots by herself for a while, looking rather content. “How's it going?”

She's back to giving him a dark glower. No smile for him. No, Siree. “This sucks. I wanna go home.”

“One ticket to Paris. As you wish.”

“ _Not_ what I meant, Ducon.”

“Mmh. Better get used to it. Adult life's a bitch.” He leaves before she has the chance to retort.

He doesn't go to find her again until it's time for lunch. They all eat in shifts so he and Claire are alone in the staff room. Claire pokes at her food and keeps stealing curious glances at him until he loses his patience. “What?” he challenges irritably. 

“Did you know that everyone thinks Dean's the boss and owner?”

“Did you tell them it’s me?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I wanna know why first.”

_Smart girl_. 

“It's convenient. Lets me be part of the gossip loop. Especially if they think I have no power to sack them.”

“So you told them Dean's the boss.”

“No. They jumped to conclusions when Dean breezed in here and hounded me about signing papers and proceeded to give me a proper scolding in the office.”

Claire sniggers. “You're so whipped,” she concludes and finally takes a proper bite of the pasta salad Hester had provided for them. 

“It's worth it, so he'll allow our roles to be reversed at home,” Luci answers with a faint, smug smirk.

“Nu-uh. I've seen it. You're as whipped at home as everywhere else.” Claire’s blue eyes sparkle with mischief as she challenges him.

“I meant it literally. That's what the playroom is for,” he states offhandedly.

She gives him a sceptical look. “What? Like BDSM?”

“Yes. But without the leather outfits and safeword.”

“Yeah, right. Like Dean would ever do something like that.” 

He ignores her in favour of eating. It’s not his place to convince her that her _darling_ Dean is fucked up in the head.

“Can I see it?” Claire asks after a moment’s silent eating. He looks up, lifting his eyebrows in question. “The Playroom. I heard you mentioning it earlier. Can I see it?”

“No.”

“Come _ooon_.”

“Claire. It’s a sex dungeon.” _Mostly_.

“So?”

He purses his lips, then pulls them up in a nasty smirk, fixing her with a leering gaze under heavy eyelids. “The only ones who get to see it are those who let me strap them down and do unspeakable things to them… still interested?”

“ _Eww._ God, you’re such a creep.” She edges away from him even though she’s sitting on the other side of the table.

He shrugs and makes a sturgeon face, and once again focuses his attention on his food. It’s not like she’s wrong.

He can see her in his peripheral vision. At first she’s huddled in on herself, leaned away. Then she starts to throw him surreptitious glances, straightening up more and more. A minute later she rests her chin in the palm of her hand and outright stares at him, looking curious.

“What?” he prompts without looking up.

“So… you’re a sadist?”

“Mhm.”

“You like hurting people?”

“That’s the definition,” he confirms lightly.

“That’s sick.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Claire lets her elbow slide closer to his place along the table so she’s leaning all prettily on one hip, looking full of shit, mocking smirk on her face. “So you, like, come in your pants when you hit someone?”

Luci huffs an amused laugh and looks up. “I’m a sadist, not _twelve_.”

Claire's eyes get a twinkle as if she’s won a point, smirk getting broader. “So you came in your pants when you were twelve, huh?”

Luci sniggers, puts down his fork and slouches backward, armpit hooked over the back of his chair, legs spread wide under the table. He grins playfully at her. “Apparently.” Of course he didn’t. That’s ludicrous. “But then I learned _not_ to keep it in my pants.”

Claire fucking chortles. Stupid bitch. _This_ is when she should go ‘Eww’ and call him a creep, not when he’s fake-leering at her. She bites her lip over a smile, eyes bright and interested. “Have you ever―” she starts.

He never gets to hear what she wants to know because Annie opens the door and comes into the staff room. Claire sits up straight and goes back to eating as fast as if she’d been caught doing something bad.

_Interesting._

“Hester’s being flooded by customers and is overwhelmed. She asked me to call if we got anyone we can spare to help out?” Annie asks, not noting Claire’s act of innocent eating.

Luci points at Claire. “She can have tyro over here, as soon as she’s finished eating.”

Claire drops her fork. “All done.” She looks at Annie and gets out of her chair. “On my way.”

Luci’s left staring at Claire’s half-eaten meal when she leaves. She’d barely eaten any breakfast either. He grunts and reaches out to drag the plate to his side of the table. It’d be a shame to waste.

* * *

He crosses the parking lot to peek into the garden café once during the day. As always, when the café is busy, so is his store. It doesn’t leave much time for supervision. He doesn’t go inside the café, settling for searching Claire out from the door. She’s running around like a mad cow, busting her ass off clearing tables. By her gait he can tell her feet are killing her. Her shoes aren’t made for hard work all day. Satisfied that she hasn’t run off or isn’t shirking work he goes back.

By the end of the day he’s fucking _glad_ he has a teenager to care for because customers keep coming and they seem to get more idiotic the later it gets. It’s a fucking blessing to leave it to Annie, Joy, and Tony to work closing hours because he has to go home early. It’s already 6 PM so ‘early’ isn’t exactly half day. He calls Hester and tells her to send Claire out to the car.

Claire and he both come stomping to the car from different directions. They get into the car, slam their doors and go:

“I _hate_ people!”  
“I _hate_ people!”

Luci stares blankly at Claire for a beat. “See why I’m a sadist now?”

Claire emits a humourless laugh, shakes her head and looks out of her window. “Can we just go home now?”

Luci hums and starts the car. He puts the car stereo on and backs out of the parking lot.

“Ugh. This music sucks,” Claire complains and reaches for the control.

He swats at her fingers. “Driver picks the music.”

“Can I drive?”

“Noo,” he answers with fake patience. “You don’t have a driver’s license.”

She gives him a withering look and gazes out of the window again.

“We’ll have to remedy that,” he adds as an afterthought.

She looks back at him. “When I have a driver’s license, can I get a car?”

“ _Suure_. As soon as you can afford to buy one.”

“ _Salop_ ,” she calls him then goes back to staring out of the window with a displeased expression. He’s glad that he doesn’t understand all the insults she throws his way. He’s not sure he’d be able to withhold equally rude answers. That doesn’t stop him from turning the music up to piss her off further, though.

They drive silently for a while, only Bon Jovi’s ‘Blaze of Glory’ album blasting from the speakers. She starts getting antsy, frowning while looking at the passing surroundings, then frowning at him, and then the surroundings again. “Where are we going? This isn’t the way home.”

“We have some things we need to buy first.”

She rolls her eyes. “Couldn’t you have dropped me off at home first? I have better things to do than tagging along while you go on a shopping spree.”

“I could, but I didn’t.”

“ _Ugh._ ”

Her mastery of fed up expressions equals his own. He withholds a smirk.

He parks the car outside of a mall, kills the engine and gets out of the car. “Wait here. I won’t be long.”

“Can’t you leave the keys? I want to listen to music.”

He takes his earbuds out of a pocket and throws them at her. “Use your phone.”

“Oh my God! I’m not gonna steal the car.”

“I know you’re not,” he answers with a closelipped smile and jangles the car keys, then slams the door and locks the car before she can spit more French insults at him.

He’s gone for about five minutes. She’s wearing the headphones when he gets back and doesn’t even spare him a glance. The resentment is tangible.

She startles when he dumps the plastic bag in her lap and starts the car.

She takes an earbud out. He can hear Imagine Dragons coming from it. “What’s this?”

He raises an eyebrow at her. The bag is _in her lap_. It’s easy enough to find out without him having to explain. She graces him with another glower in response, puts the earbud back in, and opens the bag to peek inside. He notes her surprise through the corner of an eye. The bag contains antiseptic, relaxing foot salt, Compeed, and a couple of other remedies for sore feet and blisters. She’s quiet for a while, then removes her earbuds and grudgingly says, “Thank you…”

His lips curve up in a self-satisfied smirk. “Have you got better shoes for work? Boots? Sneakers?”

Her lips twist in displeasure. “You mean, like, combat boots like you wear?”

“Mhm. For example. Doctor Martens wouldn’t quite do the trick without proper inlays. They might not have high heels but they’re too flat inside.”

“I didn’t bring any.”

“You came here to go to highschool and college and you didn’t bring sneakers? What about phys ed?”

Her expression and silence tell him that she might not have planned to participate in phys ed.

“Fair enough.” He switches on the blinkers to turn the car around. “Then we’ll go buy you shoes.”

* * *

Walking down the mall with Claire has him wanting to put an arm around her and hiss at every other man they pass. Preferably while brandishing a gun. It’s one thing for _him_ to imagine doing dirty things to that ass she wields like a fucking weapon. Others, though, should stay the fuck away from what’s his. ‘His’ only by courtesy of her living under his roof, but still. She's walking ahead of him―a fact he can appreciate―swaying that ass, a hole juuuust under her left butt cheek, giving a nice preview of the reward of getting to see her naked.

Annoyingly enough, other men are just as appreciative.

“Looking good there, mama.”  
“ _Daaamn_. That’s some fine ass booty, girl.”  
“Baby, come ride my dick with that ass.”

Men are swine. He should know. He is one.

Claire’s disgusted looks and French insults do nothing to stop idiots from grabbing dicks and doing thrusting motions when she walks by. 

The most entertaining part of shopping is when some college-aged twat goes “Does your daddy know you’re out dressed like that, begging for cock,” while advancing on her with a dangerous leer. He won’t stop at leering, Luci knows it. He can recognise a dick as big as himself when he sees one.

“ _Yes_ ,” Luci answers coldly from behind him.

The guy turns around scowling, sees Luci’s expression, pales and makes himself scarce with a silent yelp. 

Luci smirks arrogantly at the guy’s receding back. 

_That’s right. Touch without **my** sayso, and you _ will _die._

“Men are jerks. They shouldn’t be staring like they do,” Claire remarks in disgust.

“Don’t come running to me for sympathy. You hang a poster on a roadside billboard, people are going to look and comment. Come back when they start groping. _Then_ I’ll give a shit.”

“Just because _you_ don’t like the way I dress―”

He interrupts her with a little laugh. “Who says I don’t like it? You look like a streetwalker. The only thing you leave to imagination is the colour of your pubic hair and the scent of your pussy. I _love_ it.”

Claire makes an offended noise and turns around. “Mon Dieu, ta gueule, t'es rien qu'un petit connard.”

He follows her with a smug snigger. 

One would expect her to act more uncomfortable around him after a comment like that. So it comes as a surprise later when she’s about to try on shoes and he’s sprawled on a bench in the store with her 6 feet in front of him, she bends at the waist on straight legs to unzip her pumps―putting her ass on glorious display just for him. There are many ways to take your shoes off and he’s not born yesterday―he knows posing when he sees it. He doesn’t even need to catch a glimpse of her faint smirk to get what she’s doing. 

He hums appreciatively and mumbles, “Mon Dieu, _indeed_...” with a pleased tone of voice.

* * *


	3. Period Cramps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Women bleed monthly. It's inconvenient, but there it is. Luci's prepared.

Claire’s a smart girl. She learns from her mistakes. The next day she only hits the snooze button twice before getting up to shower. He spots her coming down the stairs. Makeup as sooty as usual, a deeply V-necked top so thin you can see both bra and belly button through it, a short, pleated plaid skirt, fishnet stockings, all worn with her new combat boots. 

**_YES!!! Fuck yes!!!_ **

“No. You're _not_ wearing that, young lady. Go straight back to your room and change.”

“You're not my dad,” she snipes at him. 

“You're making my point. Your dad might see an innocent girl, looking at you. I don't. There's a fine line between ‘classy slut’ and ‘trashy whore’ and you're flying miles over it. Dressed like that you're fucking _asking for it_.”

She crosses her arms. “Uh-huh. And how do _you_ propose I dress, then?” she asks sarcastically and pinches her lips petulantly.

“The fuck do I know? If you’re going to insist on looking like a slut, at least make it look like the guys will have to work for it. That means, classy on top, trashy downstairs or vice versa. You have to choose. Show your boobs or show your cunt. Now march your ass upstairs and change.” He points sternly up the stairwell.

She bestows him with a withering look then stomps upstairs. She never turns around, so if he happens to lean forward and get a peek at a pair of red panties that goes over the stockings, no one has to know. He wonders if she’s wearing a pair of string panties underneath it all for comfort. He knows some women do that, then put a second pair of panties on to get the stockings to stay in place.

He’s by the kitchen table eating his breakfast and reading the newspaper when she comes back. He does his best to keep his face neutral, even though her current outfit fucks his libido over even more. She’s kept the bottom intact and exchanged her top for a fitted white blouse, modestly buttoned all the way up. She’s tied a thin, black satin band in a rosette at the collar, and under it, a silver cross hangs in a mockery of all that’s holy. Correction―all that conservatives consider holy. He believes in God as much as the next guy, but if there are reasons for worship it’s feisty assholes like Dean and Claire, or perfect beauties like Mikey. “Better,” he remarks as she slides into place across and to the side from him.

“Like I give a shit what you think,” she sasses and grabs the cup of coffee he’s prepared for her.

He doesn’t dignify that with an answer.

If he was just a bit better at keeping his mouth shut, that would be good. A few minutes later a totally unnecessary remark slips out without his sayso. “You must really desperate to lose your virginity.”

“I’m not a virgin,” Claire deadpans.

_Figures. Like I had to know she’s already sexually active._

“Of course you aren’t.”

“The age of consent is 15 in France. I waited until after that.”

“Good for you. Why are we having this conversation?”

“You started it.”

“Are you on the pill?”

“None of your business.”

He sighs and rubs a tired hand over his face. “If something should happen that leads to you needing medical attention while unconscious, I need to know. Some medicines might not work well with birth control pills and cancel them out or vice versa. Or, heighten the risk for blood clots.”

Claire takes a bite on her sandwich and chews while studying him. “Yes,” she finally answers.

He grunts, and the conversation dies with his non-answer. He does note, though, that she’s only taken three bites on her sandwich, when it’s time to go.

* * *

“What do you want for dinner?” he asks in the car on the way home. He’s feeling cheerful. The number of upskirt views she’d supplied him with today had kept him in a fairly good mood. Like when she’d volunteered to climb up the ladder to remove the bird that somehow had gotten stuck under the glass ceiling in one of the greenhouses, while he’d been holding the ladder. He knew she knew he’d been looking. He’d seen her throw surreptitious glances over her shoulder and then pretend she didn’t notice instead of telling him to fuck off. (She did that plenty of times a day anyway.) And she’d ‘posed’ for him on other occasions too. Moments when she knew he was looking but pretended not to, she’d curved her body just so, arched her back, or bent over in a sexy way.

“I don’t know. Doesn’t matter.”

_That’s because you hardly eat._

“No preferences whatsoever? Steak? Vegan? Sushi? Pizza? Take out or eat out?” He lists possibilities. As much as he appreciates her slim waist, he doesn’t want anyone to get malnourished on his watch.

“Why don’t you cook something?”

“Are you sure you want instant ramen?” he asks skeptically, scrunching up his face.

Claire laughs in surprise. “Is that the only thing you know how to cook?”

“No. Of course not. Let’s see… there’s TV dinners, Campbell’s soup, Minute Meals, sandwiches...”

Claire giggles. That’s nice. He likes that.

“Hey, Dean’s the chef in our family,” Nick defends himself with a little smirk. “If it takes more than ten minutes to make, I’m not your man. That, or if you want it to taste anything but bland.”

Another rewarding giggle. “It’s weird how proud of yourself you sound when you tell me that.”

He shrugs unapologetically. “So what do you want to eat?” he repeats.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“ _Claire_ ,” he barks fresh out of patience and snaps his fingers demandingly, scowling at the road. 

“Alright, alright! Take a chill pill, would you? Pizza, okay, enfoiré?”

“Then pizza it is,” he says, much more amicably. Maybe if he gets her what she wants to eat she’ll eat more.

As it turns out, no. She doesn't. One fucking pizza slice is all she eats. Back to square one.

* * *

Mornings are the bane of his existence. Not because he's got a problem getting up early, but because others do. Claire for an instance. She seems determined to figure out what will make him leave her home alone. The answer to that is - nothing. But she doesn't know that. 

Today she's somewhat modestly dressed. Simple tee and black skin-tight jeans without any holes. It's raining outside. She hasn't touched her breakfast at all and looks somewhat pitiful. He ignores her, waiting for whatever reason she'll come up with not to work today. 

“I can't work today.”

_There it is._

“How's that?” he asks disinterestedly without looking up from his paper. 

“My period just came. I've got cramps.”

Luci's eyes shift to take her in. She looks pitiful, yes, but she isn't pale and rolled into a ball crying. He rises from the chair and leaves the room. She watches him go with a confused expression. He comes back with several things that had caused Dean to be quite befuddled. Luci and Mikey had gone on a shopping trip the moment they heard they'd have a woman living under their roof, buying stuff a gay man without sisters could never see the need for. 

He goes to the microwave first, throws in the wheat heating pad for 30 seconds. Rummages in a cupboard for the ginger tea and makes a cup, then picks a pill out from each of the jars he'd gotten. Claire watches him with growing bemusement. He comes back to the table and puts the heating pad in her lap. “For your stomach.” He drops the pills in front of her. “Naproxen for the cramps, zinc and iron for the bleeding.” He snatches her coffee cup away and goes to fetch the ginger tea. “For the cramps.”

She's staring at him as if he's grown horns. Blinking, she swallows the pills and sniffs the tea. “I'd rather have coffee.”

“And you can. If the pain has subsided when we get to work you can have a cup of Hester’s. Now eat your breakfast.”

He can see how she struggles not to glare. He goes around the table to sit in his spot. 

She sips the tea, holding the pad against her lower belly. Then, “I can't go. I only have panty liners and they'll bleed through.”

Once again he leaves the room and yet again comes back with stuff. He throws a multipack of tampons in front of her, containing minis, normal, and super. “Here. Or these, if you have problems putting the real stuff in,” he adds, dropping a pack of Tampax before her. “Or these, if that's your preference,” he finishes, dropping a pack of period pads on the table. It's the super plus night version. “We can get your personal brand and type after work.”

She makes a disgusted noise but doesn’t say anything. Instead, she sips her tea and nibbles her sandwich broodily.

* * *

In the car, she once again tries to shirk work. “We need to go back. I've bled through my tampon.”

“You can change at work. And don't use the minis this time.”

“I didn't. I used the super.”

“And you bled through it already?” he asks with a worried frown. 

“Yes?”

“You always bleed that much?” He asks, distress mounting. 

“Yes?”

“That's it. I'm taking you to a doctor right away.” He changes lane and switches on the blinkers. 

“Oh my fucking God! It's just a period. Women bleed. It's fucking normal, moron.”

“Bleeding through a super tampon in fifteen minutes _isn't fucking normal_. Especially not when you're on the pill. It may be an indication that something is very wrong. That you're used to it doesn't make it normal. It might indicate cysts that if left untreated could leave you barren even if they're benign. At the very least it might mean you've got the wrong contraceptive.”

“ _Oh my God_ , how do you fucking know all these things?!”

“First of all, I've been fucking pussies since my early teens. Second of all, sisters. I've got them. And Nana would read me the riot act if I didn't understand the female body. Just because I'm a fuckboy doesn't make me ignorant. We're _going_ to the hospital.”

“Argh! I'm _fine_. I'll change when we get to work.”

“Are you sure? If you're faking you'd better be prepared to fake the whole circus, sweetcheeks. I know a period isn't a fucking handicap but if you bleed through a super tampon every fifteen minutes―“

“I said I'm _fine._ ” She crosses her arms and slouches mopily, staring at the windshield wipers as if they’re at fault.

_Fucking faker._

He doesn’t call her out more than he has already. But he vows to keep an eye on her. If she isn’t faking they’re fucking going to see a doctor. She’ll have no say in the matter.

* * *

She works as hard as usual but today she glares at him instead of showing herself off. Sometime after lunch, she starts looking a bit pale and lethargic. He brings her a plate of pineapple slices, a glass of water and another naproxen. “For the cramps. Take a fifteen-minute break, eat these.”

“Pineapple? That's supposed to work?” she asks skeptically.

“Supposedly. The fuck would I know? Take your damned break and―“

“Excuse me? Have you got these in blue?” an elderly woman asks, interrupting his chiding.

He turns around, plastering on a fake polite smile. “No, ma’am. Those only come in yellow.”

“A shame. Can’t you order a couple of blue ones? I don’t mind waiting.” 

Luci wants to slap her. He smiles broader. “No, ma’am. They only exist in yellow.”

“Oh… but can't you plant a couple?”

_How hard can it be to understand that they don’t come in blue?_ he thinks exasperatedly.

The images of graphic violence flashing in his head make it hard to resist the urge to break her bones. Just one. A small one. Maybe a finger? People's stupidity sometimes astounds him. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Claire fight a snigger. “I'd love to, ma'am. But the blue ones require a special license to grow. They cost too much to obtain,” he lies. “Why don't you check with Merklin Gardens on the other side of New York City? I think they're licensed dealers for the blue variety.”

“Ah. I see. I will. Thank you.”

Claire manages to withhold her laugh until the would-be customer of non-existing flowers are out of earshot. He bestows her with a resentful glare. “Hupp. I’m taking my break now,” she hastens to say and scuttles away giggling, biting down on a piece of pineapple as she goes. 

_Bitch_.

* * *

Claire’s being unusually quiet and reclusive this evening, not bothering him once after dinner. Not even to come downstairs and criticize his choice of TV entertainment or music. It’s both annoying and liberating. He figures that period cramps is the cause of her lacking snarky appearance. It makes him feel a bit lonely. He skypes Mikey for a quick chat before Mikey needs to get ready for business hours. It leaves him feeling even more lonely. Dean’s currently undercover so he can’t call him. Instead, he decides to go outside to do some gardening. 

He’s barely rounded the corner of the house outside before he hears something from above. He looks up and withholds a groan of exasperation.

_Can’t fucking trust this bitch._

Claire’s already climbed from her window to the drainpipe, and is using it to scale downward. Luci sticks his hands in his front pockets, thumbs outside of them, and patiently waits in front of the pipe. Claire’s feet (clad in her new sneakers, he notes) touch ground. She turns around, smacks right into his chest, and jumps back with a shriek.

He tilts his head to the side, pursing his lips in a tired, unimpressed expression. 

For a couple of beats, she looks scared shitless, then comes the expected excuse. “La vache, I was just―”

“I know,” he interrupts her.

She blinks at him, waiting for him to say something more. 

He doesn’t.

“But I just wanted―”

“No,” he interrupts her again.

“Come _ooon_ ,” she whines. “If you’d just―”

“No.”

She makes her eyes big, sad, and innocent, lowering her head, looking up at him, pouting prettily with those tempting lip-smacker glossy lips, hands behind her back, trying for baby-girl cute.

“No,” he repeats, voice flat and bored.

“Ugh. _Fine_.” She moves as if to stomp towards the door on the other side of the house, but he sidesteps to block her way. “What? I’m going to the _door_ ,” she defends herself exasperatedly.

He slowly shakes his head and pointedly looks up at her window.

She follows his gaze, then looks back at him. “You _can’t_ be serious?”

_Oh, no? If you can’t be bothered to take the door on your way out, you ain’t using it on the way in._

He raises an eyebrow at her.

She stares at him in disbelief for a moment, then rolls her eyes and turns around. Muttering “J'en ai ral le cul. Dégénéré fils de pute…” she climbs back up. He waits below her until she’s climbed back into her room and closed the window.

He then sighs and takes his phone out of his pocket, switches on notifications for the house’s security system. No alarm will go off, but he’ll get a notification anytime a window or entrance is opened, and able to see which one.

_One fucking month of this._

_At least the view is nice…_


	4. Massage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luci needs to learn to keep his hands to himself.

“Hey Baptiste. Do you remember when Anna was starving herself in her teens?... Yes. How did you get her to eat properly?... Mhm….uhuh… okay. ...Thank you! Bye.”

One phone call and an early morning visit to the closest 24/7 grocery store later, Luci’s preparing breakfast.

Greek yoghurt, chopped nuts, honey, sliced strawberries, bananas, and crushed dark chocolate, plated on an oversized plate to fool the eye to think it’s less than it is, all served with a blueberry smoothie loaded with extra dietary supplements. If she insists on eating fucking nothing, then that fucking nothing needs to have nutrition to last her a day. He adds a small cup of coffee and the ‘chick pills’.

Claire―dressed in skinny jeans, combat boots, and the sheer, see-through, V-necked top today―stares in bemusement at the breakfast when she comes into the kitchen. She sits down, swallows the iron and zinc pills with the coffee, eats a couple of spoons of yoghurt, makes an appreciative noise and looks at him. “Am I not supposed to be on some punishment?”

“Fair enough,” he says with a smirk, then mock-sternly, “You’re not leaving the table until you’ve finished your breakfast, young lady.”

Claire giggles.

Claire even finishes the meal.

It’s the first whole fucking meal she’s eaten since he’d taken over the responsibility for her care.

He spends a moment basking in self-gratulatory smugness.

Then he realises he’ll have to keep this bullshit up and his good mood evaporates.

* * *

Claire eats the bullshit lunch of a smoothie and pineapple slices too. If she thinks it'll keep her slim she's got another thing coming. The supplements added to it will keep her energized and the meat on her bones. He can't say he's pleased by having to supply this kind of faux-slimming diet, but if that's what it takes, he'll do it.

Around 4 P.M. she’s gone AWOL. Annoyed and prepared to chew her out, he goes on a search. He spots her curled into a ball behind a stack of boxes in the storage room. She's got a hand pressed against her lower abdomen and her eyes and mouth are screwed shut in a pained expression. Could be cramps, could be her stomach reacting to eating full meals. He goes to crouch down in front of her. “Cramps?”

She yelps, eyes flying open. “Fuck, you move silently!”

He smirks. “Cramps?” he repeats. 

“I'm fine,” she answers, unfolding from her ball.

He puts his hand on her shoulder to push her back against the boxes before she flees the scene. “No. You're not. If you'd been looking like that where you'd be easily found I might have believed you. But the chances of anyone coming in here for the next hour or so is next to none. So is it cramps or something else?”

“Cramps,” she admits after a moment of hesitation. 

“Are you bleeding as excessively as you had me believe?”

Another pause with a dissatisfied twist to her lips. “No.”

He hums thoughtfully. He'd given her two painkillers today already. “You're in a lot of pain,” he concludes. 

She glowers darkly. “You must be having a good time right now, seeing as you're a sadist and all,” she grumps. 

“I'm not the one causing you pain, am I? So, no.”

“How did you find me, anyway?”

“I was looking for you. Wanted to make sure you weren't shirking work.”

“Ugh. Fine.” She moves to get up but he pushes her back again. 

“Not fine. There's pain and there's pain. Working with moderate pain is one thing. I and Dean do it all the time. But you're not a soldier. We're going home.”

“Oh, so _now_ you're gonna let me stay home alone all the sudden?”

He chuckles. “Don't be ridiculous. I said _we_. Besides, I'm going to give you one of my painkillers. I'm not allowing you to potentially get high without supervision.”

That shuts her up.

He helps her to her feet, noting how she tries to hide a grimace of pain, then leads her through the store with a hand between her shoulder blades. “Annie! We're leaving for today,” he calls out when they pass the register. 

“But rush hours just started!” Annie protests. 

“In that case, sucks to be you,” he counters with a light tone and throws her a kiss with his middle finger. 

He doesn't get to bask in her reaction because then they're out of the door. 

Claire snorts. “The amazing part is that she actually likes you.”

“What?” Nick asks, scrunching up his face in confusion. 

“She says that once you get used to the yelling, the grumpy mood, and the name calling, you're a really sweet guy.”

“Goes to prove how little she knows me.”

Claire throws him a look but doesn’t answer.

In the car, he takes a blister strip from his pocket and pops two pills out―one for her, and one for himself. He dry swallows his own then gives her the other along with half a bottle of water from the cup holder on the dashboard. “Here. Swallow it. It’s the good stuff. God bless opioids, and all that. Should be starting to kick in by the time we get home.”

Claire stares dubiously at the pill in the palm of her hand.

“Fuck sake. I’m not going to force you to take drugs, Claire. You don’t want it, I’ll take it back.”

Claire slaps the pill into her mouth before he even finishes the sentence.

He tries to hold back a snigger.

But, he’d be the first to confess he doesn’t try very hard.

They make a stop on the way home. Claire must really be in pain since she doesn’t put up a token protest to either the stop, or having to wait in the car. She doesn’t even express curiosity about the black plastic bag with the gold stripes he comes back with. It’s a bit of a disappointment. It doesn’t matter. He isn’t going to give it to her until the pain has started to fade, anyway. 

He’s a nice guy. He keeps the car stereo off instead of torturing her with his music the whole ride.

Once at home he tells Claire to go change into something more comfortable and get into bed. He goes to the kitchen, starts the water boiler, heats the wheat heating pad and goes upstairs. He knocks on her door. "I’m coming in,” he calls and waits for a moment to give Claire a chance to cover up before opening the door. She’s curled up on top of her bedding in an oversized T-shirt that barely covers her ass, with a scissor-cut, loose neckline revealing a shoulder. The fabric is thin and soft like it's been washed a million times. “I've brought you the heating pad. How are you feeling? Painkiller kicked in yet?”

“A little bit, I think. Thanks,” she says when he hands her the heater. He has a strong impulse to caress her over the hair. It’s a stupid impulse. They’re not at that level in their relationship. More like, minimal touching in reality, full molestation in the mind. Thought crimes aren’t crimes.

“I’m making you ginger tea. I’ll be back when it’s done.”

“Okay…”

He leaves her again, keeping the door open since he’ll be back. When he returns ten minutes later, he’s carrying the tea and the black, plastic bag with her presents. The room is semi-dark. No lights are on, the blinds are down, but the sunlight filters in through them since Claire hasn’t pulled the compact curtains to block all light out. Claire sits up, leaning against the wall, still not covering her legs with the blanket. The heater is placed over her lower abdomen and the shirt is so old and worn that he can see the darker colour of her areolas through the fabric now that she isn’t wearing a bra. She reaches for the cup of tea with a grateful expression, puts it against her lower lip and starts blowing to make it cool down. He sits down on her bedside uninvited and drops the plastic bag on the floor. He imagines running his hand from her ankle, upward, cupping her calve, the inside of her thigh, stroke with his fingers over her labias through the fabric of her panties. Bend forward and suck a nipple into his mouth and play with it with teeth, lips, and tongue, until her shirt is soaked with his saliva. He imagines several reactions. Claire moaning, parting her legs, wanting more―the least likely reaction. Claire going stiff, frozen with fear and panic, letting it happen. It’s a common enough reaction. Or Claire defending herself, throwing the hot tea at him, scalding him and causing a bruise with the cup. It’d piss him off. He’d backhand her, sending her tumbling, grab her by the throat and push her down on the bed. He’d rip her panties off while she’d claw at his hand, struggling to breathe. He’d force himself in between her legs, pull the tampon out, open his zipper and― 

All options are equally enticing and this is what Dean doesn’t fully grasp about him. Dean gets that his moral compass is all over the place. But it’s more to it than that, always has been. All his life he’s been bombarded with these graphical impulses of violence and sex. They are real impulses, not just abstract thoughts, like he’s understood that they are for most people. He gets them about everybody regardless of their relations. No matter how much he loves somebody he’ll have these notions, and if he hadn’t been so good at thinking ahead, he’d do a lot of things he’d regret.

At the same time, he loves and worships with the force of a sun. He wants to care for, and give his loved ones _everything_. Unlike most people he has no limits for what he'd do for someone he loves. None whatsoever. 

He's a monster and he knows it.

Dean’s his main inhibitor. He cares jack shit for the law, but losing Dean? The worst fate imaginable. Mikey wouldn't abandon him for anything. He knows that now. But Dean…

Mikey could steer him but not control, they're two parts of a whole. Two people in the world had been able to control him and one of them never realized it―his dad. 

Marlon Williams is dead now. It still makes him want to roll into a ball and cry. The pain of the loss is greater than anyone would imagine that he could feel about his dad. Especially since they'd never gotten along and he'd been set on killing his dad.

The thing is, for him, there had always been the understanding that he would fail. Marlon Williams is God. God is immortal. 

Then dad went and killed himself and shook the very core of Luci’s foundation. 

He'd hated his dad.

Hate and love are _very_ closely related. Worse even, was the fact that a lot of the hate was founded in the belief that his dad didn't love him, didn't care, and wasn't proud of him no matter what he did. Around the time of his death, it had been revealed that none of this was true. 

Claire sips the tea carefully. “I think it's strange that your sisters would talk about their periods with you,” she states. It's a question posed as a statement. 

It jars him out of the circle of despair thoughts of his dad's death always sucks him into. He smiles. “Hester is the oldest and she got her period early. She was ten. She had a freak out about bleeding, Gabe teased her, and Nana―, that's Naomi. You've only met her in a hospital bed, but she's badass. She went ballistic. She got all us kids together and gave us a thorough lesson in how the female body works. It normalized everything that the female body is up to. I've frequently found myself better educated about the matter than my girlfriends or fucks.”

“Huh.” Claire mulls this over, sipping her tea. He can see on her eyes that the drugs are doing their job now. Apparently, she notes it too. “Why do you have this kind of painkillers? This is a fucking trip.”

He chuckles. “Chronic pain.”

She looks sceptical. “Really?”

Two years ago his next action would have been unthinkable. The disgust and loathing he'd felt about his scarred body is a mere memory today. He pulls his shirt off without any hesitation, proud glow in his chest from showing off his tattoos. 

“ _Whoa._ ”

Luci preens and touches the scarred skin. “My skin burned, melted, from here to here. Mikey designed the tattoos to cover the scarring up. It's mostly numb and tingling, but the grenade that got me… the shrapnel ripped my insides to shreds and that's what still causes pain. Not constantly. Sometimes it's just a dull ache, sometimes it feels like being stabbed by hot pokers. Mostly I take the pills to keep the edge off the pain.”

“Mostly?”

He smirks. “They give a damned fine high, don't you think?”

She giggles and reaches out to touch his tattoos. She's high now, no doubt. Her fingertips are warm from holding the teacup as they trace flowers and vines, first on the damaged skin, then on his healthy skin where his tattoos have spread along with his returning vanity and wish to show off. It is pleasant. The little hairs stand on end in the wake of her fingers. “Michael drew these?”

“Mhm. On paper. We found a good tattoo artist to transfer the pictures to my skin. Michael’s done most of the art on our walls and I've taken all the photos.”

“That's fucking rad. You think he can draw me?”

“Sure he can. But unless we give him photos to reference he’ll fret about not getting details right and won’t show you the result. I can photograph you. That way you’ll know he’ll have good pictures to work from.” He resists the urge to lift her shirt to look at what colour panties she’s wearing.

“Maybe,” she answers with a smirk and withdraws her hand to grab her teacup in both hands and sip again. Her eyes remain on his tattoos. “I thought you were fat.”

So not his tattoos then―his body. “I thought you were smart.” If she’d paid attention she’d have noticed he works out in the in-house gym almost daily. She’d have noticed how he hefts big bags of soil like it was nothing. Yes, he hasn’t got the same sculpt body type as Mikey, and he isn’t as slim around the waist as Dean. But his muscles are built for fighting (and moving dead bodies), like a strong diaphragm to protect solar plexus and strengthen his breathing. A layer of body fat to absorb punches and protect muscles underneath. He’s pretty beefy. He supposes that without seeing him undressed his pecs could be mistaken for man boobs. ...By morons. 

“Har har,” Claire grumps and gives him a flat look. Luci’s ego has him tensing his muscles, flexing, and her eyes go back to looking at his body like a good girl should. “How far down does your tattoo go?” she asks.

He sniggers. “For someone who calls me a disgusting old creep, you’re surprisingly eager to get me out of my pants.”

She snorts and gives him a dry look, then surprises him with a giggle. “Not what I meant, Ducon,” she grins and gives his shoulder a playful shove. He grins at her. He should really leave now. He thinks he can coax her to do all kinds of stupid shit if she’s this compliant. Maybe give her one more painkiller first to― 

_Stop it._

He puts his shirt back on. “Fair enough. I noted that you keep the lights off. Headache?”

“Yeah… I get it sometimes when I’ve got cramps.”

“Not so strange. Pain makes you tense up. I can give you a backrub if you wish. The pills might take away the pain but they don’t battle the cause. I bought some warming massage oil for the purpose.”

_Amongst other things._

He goes on. “I also bought an essential oil to rub on your lower abdomen if you’re duped by homeopathy crap, but you’ll have to rub that in yourself. I’m not touching that stinky shit.”

_As if that’s the reason. Hah. I start rubbing your belly, sweetheart, I’ll have my hands down your panties in no time._

Claire wears a dubious, amused, and a little dazed expression―dazed, due to the sedative effect of the painkillers. He doesn’t react that strongly to them, partly because he’s used to them, partly because he weighs 194 lbs, while she weighs maybe 120-something lbs. He makes a mental note to call his doctor and get a prescription of pills that aren’t _quite_ as strong, for her benefit.

“ _Or_ ,” Luci amends, “I can call a masseuse. It’ll take her some time to get here. But like you pointed out, we _are_ millionaires. Most anything is on hand when the need arises.” This would be the most suitable option. Not his favoured one, but the most practical in every way except in time, and opportunity for acceptable groping.

She mulls it over, sipping her tea while staring unabashedly from under lowered eyelids. Then she puts the cup on the nightstand, removes the heating pad, scoots to the side to put it on the bed, then turns over and lies down on it so the pad is still on her belly. She wriggles a little, pulling her shirt off her back and over her head without taking it off. It’s trapped over her chest, still around her arms. Her arms are laid along her body. His mind automatically calculates how he can use her shirt to easily restrain her like this. Her panties are black cotton today. High cut briefs. ‘Period panties’. He’d love to buy her a couple of sexy panties. Maybe the black, lacy Maggie Tang butterfly themed ones he’d seen. He’d suggested Mikey would wear them. It had taken Mikey five fucking minutes to stop laughing. He’s sure Dean would acquiesce, but then Mikey would get to see it too and he can go fuck himself. If he won’t wear them, Luci isn’t going to share the sight of them being worn either.

“You do it,” Claire prompts. As if he hadn’t gotten the message already.

“Fair enough.” He reaches down to take the massage oil out of the bag, ignoring the other boxes for now. “This will be a bit cold, to begin with,” he warns and pours some oil in his hands. He starts off by massaging her while sitting at the bedside. Long, deep strokes to get a feel for how knotted up, and how sensitive to pressure she is. Little by little he goes on to focus on certain points, rubbing in circles and putting pressure. Claire lets out a low moan that makes him happy he’s so good at keeping his expression neutral.

“ _Mon Dieu_ , you’re good at this.”

“Darlin’, I’m good at everything I do,” he purrs.

“You’re not good at cooking,” she mumbles with a smirk. Her eyes are closed, face relaxed.

“Well, I don’t _do_ cooking, now do I?”

He gets a breathy giggle in reward. “How’d y’ get so good at this anyway?” She sounds drugged. She is, by all means, but he’d like to think his ministrations has something to do with it too.

“Pride and competitiveness,” he admits.

“?”

He sniggers at the small, barely audible sound she makes, conveying a question. “Michael has the upper hand in all departments when it comes to women. You may not see it since he’s too old for you, but my brother is fucking hot, beautiful, and charming―”

“‘S not too old…” she mumbles.

_Oh, really? Another piece of information I didn’t need._

“Fair enough. But I had to make myself stand out somehow. So I trained myself to be amazing with my hands and mouth,” ― _Because telling her that is strictly necessary? Well done in keeping yourself in check, Luci―_ “...to make sure they’d come back, and brag about my performance to their friends.”

“...so y’d massage them?”

Luci chuckles darkly. “Amongst other things. Otherwise, how would I compete with Mikey? I don’t stand a chance.”

“Not true… lots of girls like assholes.”

He chuckles at the drowsy jab and refrains from asking if she’s one of them. He’s not supposed to dirty talk her. He then pours some more oil on her back and switches position to straddle her legs. He pulls her panties down a bit to reach the base of her spine. She lifts her ass to make it easier. She fucking shouldn’t. She must _feel_ that he pulls them down further than strictly necessary, exposing half her ass before he continues massaging. And such a luscious ass it is. His insides purr contentedly while he outwardly wears a passive mask.

“I do this to Dean a lot, especially after a session in the playroom. I keep my skills up.” Yet another comment he should have kept to himself.

“I thought you were a sadist…”

“Aftercare, darlin’. I take very good care of those who _belong_ to me.”

“Mmmhm, _Oooh_ , that what you’re doin’ now, _mon Dieu_...”

It’s too easy to slip from practical to sensual massage. He’d gotten rid of the worst knots and now shifts to long, slow strokes with his hands fanned out, from the base of the spine up to her neck. He leans along with it. Moves his hands to her sides and glides upward along her tiny midriff to her ribcage, grazing the sides of her delicious, small breasts.

He wonders if she’s high enough to not realise how far over the line of what’s appropriate he’s flying.

She fucking must, because her breath is getting heavier.

Especially when he massages the top of her butt cheeks and lets his hands slide down to rub her hip bones on her front. This would be the perfect time to lean forward to bite her neck tendon at the base of her skull, just hard enough to ensure it’s pleasant. He doesn’t. He’s not that stupid. Michael left her in his care so he’d supervise her, not so he could spear her on his dick. Something they’re getting perilously close to. Especially as she moans and mumbles ‘ _mon dieeeeuuu_ ’ while arching her back slightly. He can feel her thighs press against the inside of his knees, signifying that she’s getting horny enough to spread her legs. He imagines pulling his dick out, jerk himself off and come over her back, then rub his come into her skin, marking her up as his.

Time to stop.

He gives her a couple of more strokes along her back before he dismounts her and sits back on the bedside. “All done.”

There’s a little whine of protest, then she too sits up and pulls her shirt back on―but not before he gets a glimpse of peaked, pink nipples. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” 

_Seriously. Don’t. To anybody._

“I got you a couple of gifts,” he continues. “Endorphins help battle all kinds of pain, and exercise is a great way to achieve it. But since I doubt I could coax your lazy ass down to the gym, and I can’t offer you the real thing, here’s something that’ll do the trick.” He picks up the plastic bag from the floor and hands it to her.

She takes the bag and peeks inside. It’s comical to see her expression go from dazed, drowsy, and content, to popeyed and shocked. “You got me _dildos_?”

“Vibrators, aside from Mr.Rabbit. I didn’t know your preferences, so there are different models. Orgasms are the bomb when battling cramps.” He gets to his feet. “I’m not going to stay around to see if you make use of them, so you can relax. Dinner’s ready at 7. If you’re not down by then I’ll come up to get you.” 

He kisses his index finger and boops her nose with it, and leaves her room without acknowledging the stare at his back. He closes the door after himself, then goes to the bedroom to rub one out. He still hasn’t misstepped far enough not to be able to talk himself out of trouble, if Claire tells Dean or Michael.

_Not even a week and I’ve already had her moaning under my hands. And they thought that it was a good idea to leave her in my charge? I swear, sometimes it’s like they don’t even know me…_


	5. Workout and Skype

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luci works out and pays too much attention to what people are wearing. Claire won't stop poking the bear.

He’s doing pull-ups on the bar when she comes downstairs to the gym. She sits down on the base of the stairs to watch him work out. To his knowledge, it's the first time she's come down here since getting a tour of the house. 

“You did good today,” he tells her without stopping his work out. “Handled that fuckface beautifully. Saved a life.”

“Saving a life is a bit of an overstatement.”

“Not at all. I was about to slit his throat.”

Claire sniggers. “You said you do everything you do well. You lied. Your customer service skills suck.”

“Darling, I don't _do_ customer service.” He’d had hoped that Claire wouldn’t have remembered all the bullshit coming out of his mouth a couple of days ago. No such luck.

Claire breaks out laughing. He smirks smugly and does a few extra pull-ups to show off. After all, he’d already done half of his quota before she came down, so she missed a few. 

He might not have slit any throats, but the customer had been such a bag of dicks that he was considering asking Dean if he could, even knowing the answer would be no. Then Claire had swooped in and taken over, wrapping the guy around her finger with her big baby-blues and short skirt.

The guy acted appropriately towards her or Luci might have had another reason to want to see him dead.

Luci drops down from the bar, arms starting to feel like jelly, and goes to one of the machines to train his legs. He sits down, incidentally opposite from the stairs, right in Claire’s line of sight. He adjusts the weights on the machine, making it a little heavier than he usually works with, then starts the exercise. It’s probably wasted. She probably doesn’t get what a feat it is. Doesn’t matter. Hot girl watching? He’s going to show off. It’s the **law**.

“Can you drive me to the city?” she asks at the same time as she leans back on her elbows, stretches one leg in front of her and pulls the other one up, giving him a glimpse of red polka dot panties. He refrains from saying ‘thanks’. Today has been another one of those days when she’s posed for him, deliberately looked sexy and inviting while trying to pretend she isn’t doing it on purpose. It’s worked miracles on his mood.

“Not today. I’ve got a lot of things to do tonight and I’m expecting a skype call from Dean.”

“But you’d only have to drop me off and pick me up in a couple of hours.”

He hums thoughtfully. “No. It’s too late. I don’t want you running around alone at night.”

“ _Aaargh._ I’m not a _child_ , Lucifer.”

Hearing her call him ‘Lucifer’ is so new and pleasant it startles him a bit. She usually only calls him ‘Nick’. What’s most startling is that he likes it. He hates when people call him ‘Lucifer’ unless they’re very close to him. She isn’t. Correction. She _shouldn’t_ be. The pleasant sensation would suggest otherwise. “As usual, you’re making my point for me. You’re a young woman who dresses like a fuckdoll. Anything I might think about doing, there are men out there that will _do_ without waiting for your input on the matter.”

Claire rolls her eyes and rises to a standing position. “I can handle myself,” she challenges petulantly, crossing her arms across her chest.

“Oh really? Care to try that out?” he purrs dangerously.

He gives her a couple of heartbeats to digest before he launches himself towards her. She shrieks and turns to run, but only makes it a few steps up the stairs before he’s on her. He gets a good grip around her wrist while pushing her against the wall. He twists her arm up between the shoulder blades, grabs the other and twists it up too, adjusts his grip so he’s holding both her wrists with the same hand, captures her hair with his free hand and hooks it between the fingers of his other hand, forcing her head backwards. She does struggle. She _does_. But she has no formal training and he has both height and weight advantage on her. All he has to do to make her stop struggling is twist her arms even higher up, forcing her up on her toes. He presses his chest against her back, more firmly pinning her to the wall. Her ribcage is heaving, eyes wide and satisfyingly frightened. It’s a good thing he doesn’t pop a boner with the same ease as he did in his pre-teens or this would have gotten very awkward. His pleasure isn’t the purpose of this exercise.

“See? I’ve got one hand free,” he says calmly and waves his free hand beside her face. “And both my legs are free to move as well. I’ve got you locked down with one arm, darling. It would be the easiest thing in the world to rip your pretty polka dot panties off and take what isn’t mine to have.”

“ _T’es fou ou quoi? Lâche moi! Tu me fais mal! Sale con. Arrête, espèce de taré, bâtard!_ ”

He’s got no idea what her frightened gibberish means. It’s probably just the usual string of insults. “You don’t say? Well, it’s true that most men aren’t as big, strong, and trained at hand to hand combat as I am. They don’t have to be. Most will be bigger and heavier than you, and as long as they aren’t afraid of a couple of bruises and scratches, you won’t stand much of a chance.”

“Let go of me! You’re hurting me!”

“Don’t be a baby. I know you can take it. You’re a tough girl. But being tough isn’t enough. While I will admit that your feisty attitude and foul language will repel many, some of us will just go…” He leans close to her ear, brushing the shell with his lips, and purrs, “Challenge _accepted_.”

“You’re insane!”

“Mhm,” he agrees with amusement and sniffs at her face. She goes rigid. He uses a free hand to drag a finger along her lower lip, scraping off some of the lip smacker, then sniffs at his finger curiously. He rubs the finger against his own lips and smacks experimentally. “Dr. Pepper flavour?” he hedges.

“Fucking freak! You’re fucking crazy!”

He nods, an amicable expression on his face. “Mhm,” he agrees. “I’m not the only one. A young, sexy girl, out at night, no friends, no witnesses? That could lure even cautious predators to strike. That’s not even accounting for those who use Rohypnol, ketamine or GHB to render their victim unable to resist. It’s common enough practice. Especially if you manage to squirrel yourself into a club like you did last time.” Luci hadn’t been at home then. It happened on Mikey and Dean’s watch thankfully. More importantly, nothing worse had happened than her getting drunk.

“What are you going to do to me?”

Luci scoffs. “Me? Nothing. I’m proving a point.”

“But if you give me pepper spray, or―”

“Pepper spray hurts,” he interrupts. “But won’t stop someone like me. And you’d have to have the time to get it up.” He purses his lips thoughtfully. “If you want, we can try it out. I give you one, you put it in your handbag, I’ll rush you from the other end of the room. I may end up hurting you a bit more if you’re fast enough to get it up and aim, but I bet you a 100 bucks I’ll have you pinned under me in no time either way.” It seems like a fun enough game. A really fun game, in fact.

“No,” she grumps.

He hums in disappointment. “Shame.” He lets go of her and takes a step away.

She goes from fearful to pissed off the moment she’s free. She spins around, open palm flying. He sees it coming and opts for not blocking the slap. It’s a good, hard slap. It makes his cheek sting and he has to rein his temper in as the ire flare to life in response to the violence. She follows it up by spitting in his face. A dangerous move that triggers a shitload of enticing visuals of how to respond. She’s got a fire inside of her and it lights him up. She can’t see it, of course. He keeps the hunger locked away behind a faintly amused expression. She glares at him, so he dries the spit off his face with his hand and licks his fingers clean of it.

“Oh my god, you’re a fucking freak.”

“Mhm,” he agrees yet again. “And you’re not going anywhere tonight.”

“ _Fine_.” She turns to stomp up the stairs, but turns a few steps up. “Can I have a beer?”

It startles a laugh out of him. She has some serious spunk. He likes that. “Sure, darling. Help yourself. But no more than three tonight, okay?”

She stares at him as if he’s joking.

“I know how many beers we stock. I’ll know if you take too many,” he adds to clarify that he isn’t pulling her leg. “And keep away from the hard liquor.”

“Huh,” she says before turning around and going upstairs.

He shakes his head and continues his workout, musing over what self-defence training would benefit her.

* * *

Earlier today he’d received an email from Dean, telling him Dean had a job for him and that he’d be doing a stopover at Cas’, skyping at 21:00. So at 9 PM, Luci’s lying on the bed with a laptop on his belly. He dislikes when Dean’s away. Mikey is the one of them that handles separation worst overall. Dean handled being home alone worst, but did just fine if he was away working like now. This month’s undercover job didn’t entail seduction on Dean’s part so Luci’s fine with him being gone, apart from it leaving Luci to care for Claire.

Dean calls at 21:00 sharp.

Seeing Dean’s face on screen warms Luci up from the inside out. He might be ‘fine’ with Dean being away, but he still misses him. “That’s a ridiculous disguise,” Luci opens in lieu of hello.

Dean laughs. He’s coloured his beard, brows, and lashes black, and wears a long-haired, black wig with a ponytail. “Oh, shaddap. I look good in it.”

Luci grunts in agreement. He does. He’s a beautiful man no matter what. “Fair enough. I miss you.”

_Sounding like a needy bitch._

He’d beat himself up about it, except he knows Dean needs to hear it.

“Miss you too. Only three weeks left. An’ at least this time I got some time when I could risk a call.”

Dean’s pretty smile still gives him butterflies years down the line from their first meeting. He makes Luci ache on the inside, both in a good way and in a bad.

Cas decides to crash the call by poking his head in from behind, resting his cheek on Dean’s shoulder. “Hello, Luci,” he smirks.

Luci’s instantly ticked off.

_They’re fucking. They_ have _to be. I just_ know _Dean’s cheating!_

Castiel is Dean’s go-to stopover in Europe. Dean and Cas chat on the phone way too often, jabbering away in French often as not. Cas looks at Dean with far too much lust. If it isn’t Cas, Luci can’t imagine who else it could be. 

“Hi, Cas. Can you stop pawing my husband so I won’t need to gut you like a fish?”

“No.”

Both Dean and Cas giggle and Luci has the urge to throw the laptop against the wall. If Cas wasn’t on a safe distance he’d take off running by now, but he’s a teasing little shit just like all of them, taking advantage of being on the other side of the fucking planet. 

“How's Claire doing?” Cas asks.

“She's doing fine. Last time I checked she was having a beer and was on the phone talking to a friend. They were probably talking about me. I heard the word ‘putain’.”

“You let her drink?” Cas asks, frown causing a concerned wrinkle between his brows. 

“Fuck sake,” Dean and Luci say at the same time. Dean gives Cas a light shove and Luci goes on. “She’s seventeen, at home on a Saturday night, and only gets to drink three beers. Loosen up, Cassie.”

“One shouldn’t encourage children to drink, Lucifer,” Cas states gravely. ‘Fatherhood’, if you could call it that, had done a number on him. He’s stricter on Claire than their dad had ever been on them.

Dean gives him a harder shove, pushing him off screen. “Dude, _chill_. She’s a teenager. Y’all started drinking much earlier than that. Get that stick out of your ass.”

“She’ll drink whether I permit it or not,” Luci points out. “We already know she started drinking at fourteen. Better to let her drink and keep her supervised. You dumped her in my care, now let me fucking _care_ for her.”

Cas pops back into view, draping an arm around Dean’s shoulders. “I don’t like the way you enunciate ‘care’,” he declares and narrows his eyes suspiciously.

“And I don’t like the way you rub yourself all over my husband like a horny cat, but we’re just going to have to trust each other, aren’t we?”

For a moment they stare each other down. There’s loyalty and there’s loyalty. Luci loves his little brother and trusts him with his life. ...But not with his husband. He’d need concrete proof to actually do something to Cas, though. Dean acting sketchy isn’t proof enough. The way Cas’ lip curves up in a corner in a nasty smirk, while he hugs Dean from behind, cupping a pec and runs his thumb over the nipple to make it peak isn’t proof either―it’s provocation. Cas is doing his brotherly teasing duty. Luci’s of a mind to call Claire in here to do exactly the same, knowing that Cas would be on a plane to Long Island within minutes if he saw Luci’s hand cupping Claire’s perky little breast.

Dean laughs and pushes Cas off of him. “Fucking hell, you two. _Behave,_ ” he scolds with a grin. “In fact, Cas, go to your room. I’m planning to give my man a show after the briefing, and he says you can’t watch me do it.”

Somewhere off camera Cas grumbles dissatisfied and calls out ‘Bye, Luci! Love you!’

“Love you too, jackass!” 

Dean’s amused grin is made of sunshine and reasons to live. Luci’s so lost for him. “Y’all never stop fascinating me. One moment Y'all look ready to kill each other, the next y’all declare your love for each other like ‘twas nothin’,” Dean chirps.

“One thing doesn’t cancel the other out,” Luci muses and gets another dose of Dean’s brilliant laughter. There’s a part inside of him that always swells ten sizes when he makes Dean laugh. “So… live show?”

“Fuck yeah, baby. But first the briefing. The job’s in New York, if you’re interested?”

“By all means, do get the stupid questions out of the way first,” Luci jokes dryly before Dean starts briefing him about the job. By the time Dean’s started his show, the rambunctious teenager in their home is far away from Luci’s thoughts…

* * *

“You really think Cas and Dean are fucking?” Claire asks at breakfast the next day and slurps her smoothie through the cutesie Hello Kitty straw Luci bought. He’d bought a bunch of cute straws with different decorations in a variety of colours. He matches the straw with the colour of the smoothie. It’s fucking ridiculous, yet it works. Meals get eaten faster and there are fewer leftovers when he makes the food cute. 

“Were you eavesdropping again?” he counters in annoyance.

She doesn’t answer the question. “It wouldn’t surprise me if they are. Cas is completely loopy for Dean. Anytime Dean comes to visit he’ll go nuts. Make sure the house is clean, that the fridge is stocked with Dean’s favourites, and rearrange his schedule to make sure he’ll get to spend time with Dean. He’ll even chase Balt and Meg out of the house.”

“Lying is an ugly habit.” Luci tries not to let it get to him. He really tries.

“What kind of job is it you’re supposed to do?”

“I’m warning you. If you don’t stop putting your nose where it’s not supposed to be, I will start locking your door.”

“It didn’t sound like a flower delivery.”

“You’re up for a spanking. Keep overstepping and it _will_ happen. And as you surmise, I _will_ enjoy it.” 

Claire keeps quiet for a while, staring at him while he eats. He tries to focus on reading his newspaper. His head is full of Cas prepping for a visit from Dean. It sounds far too viable in his ears. Cas has been acting out of character around Dean since the start. Not to mention how he several times have licked his fingers clean when he’s gotten Dean’s blood on them. It’s weird and possessive. Well. Weird to be Cas. Cas hasn’t got a blood kink to Luci’s knowledge. Not like he does, where the mere sight of it plays on his libido. Not like Mikey does, where it’s specifically targeted at Luci or Dean covered in someone else's blood. Mikey loves the monsters. Dean isn’t really a monster. Not like Luci. He’s got a killer inside, but not a thirst for violence and death. He needs to be riled up or morally justified. Now Cas on the other hand, he’s usually repulsed by blood, as far as Luci’s ever seen. But three times Luci’s seen him lick at Dean’s blood, and once he’s seen him lick Dean’s sweat off his hand after touching him. It’s fucking possessive, that’s what it is. He’s consuming Dean. It’s got to be what it is. He isn’t marking Dean up like Luci and Mikey are. Cas is smarter than that. He knows he’d get his ass thoroughly kicked by any of his big brothers if he did…

Unless he leaves markings that can’t be traced. Like coming inside of Dean. Filling him up. Consuming Dean’s pretty moans by covering them with his mouth― 

“Cas won’t let Balt sit beside Dean. Dean thinks it’s funny how obvious it is that Cas won’t share him,” Claire tells him like she’s reading his mind.

_Possessive. That’s what it is._

“They’re just friends, Claire.”

“Mhm.” She sounds sceptical. “Best friends. Jess and Cas are Dean’s best friends. He’s said so. If Cas lived closer they’d hang out all the time. Cas even considered moving back here. He didn’t say it was for Dean’s sake, but it’s obvious.” She digs into her Greek yoghurt, ruining its smile. One of the strawberries he’d sliced had been perfectly heart-shaped. He’d used two heart slices to make eyes, used a side to make a button nose and ate the other side himself, then layered other strawberry slices into a smiling mouth. He’d ringed it all with one sliced peach and one sliced banana. The shredded dark chocolate went underneath the yoghurt this time. Too much damned fucking work to get the bratty little bitch to eat. “He decided against it. Maybe it would make it too easy for you to find out that they’re fucking?”

_Makes perfect sense. He moved to France to hide his sexuality from dad. Dad’s dead. He could just as easily have moved back. But I’d be breathing down his neck if he did. He’d never get the chance. Plus, Dean’s a fucking cuddle bug. Away from us months at a time sometimes, often in Europe, Cas might be able to tempt him like he couldn’t when Dean’s at home…_

“Shut up and eat your breakfast, Claire.”

She does, for a few minutes. Not that it gives him much inner calm. He keeps his expression carefully neutral and skims through the newspaper without really reading it. The images that keep bombard him, about what Cas and Dean might be up to, are just as graphical and vivid as his own impulses are.

“Does he always put on a show for you when you skype?”

He ignores her. It’s a good thing that the briefing wasn’t detailed enough to fully incriminate them. Dean emailed the full file to him. Everything truly important is encrypted to high heavens. Claire can _not_ find out about his other job. The one that truly matters to him. The plant nursery, creating hybrid roses, updating the café design―it’s all just an upscaled hobby. Having to have customers takes off part of the satisfaction. On the other hand, it gives him new space to plant stuff. And once in a blue moon, there’ll come a customer who knows what they’re talking about, who’re either passionate about roses or interested in the language of flowers. They make it worth it. 

“Did you hear the door close when Cas left? I bet he stuck around to watch Dean without you even knowing it. I bet both of them enjoyed the thrill of duping you.” She scrapes up the last of the yoghurt before moving on to the banana and peach slices.

He lifts his head to look at her. “Did _you_ stick around to watch?” he counters. “You obviously heard the whole thing, but did you watch through the keyhole too? Did you see me jerk my big dick off? Did your cunt get all wet and achey from it? Did it make you wonder what it would feel like to have your uptight little pussy squeeze around it? Did you pretend I was praising and encouraging you, perhaps? Did you go play with your toys after the call ended? Hmm? Fantasised about getting your wet pussy pounded while a big, strong hand massaged your clit until you were bucking and squirming from orgasming so hard you could barely breathe? Or perhaps―”

“Mon Dieu, _stop!_ Fucking hell, you’re such a fucking pervert!” Her cheeks are a lovely shade of dark pink, eyes wide and aghast.

“I’m not the one eavesdropping on your sex life, bitch.”

“ _Fuck you_ , Ducon.” She stuffs the last two peach slices in her mouth and pushes her chair away to leave the table.

“Anytime, darling.”

“ _Aargh_.” She grabs her coffee cup and stalks towards the door.

“We leave in thirty minutes,” he warns.

She spins around to glare at him. “Whe’w a’w we owin’?” she asks, mouth too full of fruit to talk properly.

“I’m taking you to Sam and Jess. Jess will take you out shopping or whatever. Kid free. I’ll pick you up again later.”

She makes a frustrated noise and turns on her heel to stomp away. Quite a feat with today’s choice of shoes. He follows her with his gaze. His own annoyance doesn’t stop him from enjoying the view. Especially not today. Her jeans―yet a pair with more holes than fabric, hugging her shapely legs―are light blue with fringes around every hole. Her baby pink top, held up by thin spaghetti straps, has the print of a teddy bear on it. She’s topped it up with a studded leather belt that rests on her hips decoratively, and best of all―black stiletto strappy sandals that show off her dainty toes with the glittery baby pink nail polish, begging to be sucked. Those are some classy fucking shoes. None of that platform bullshit that’s only vaguely acceptable hidden under bellbottom hippie pants that better be real fucking tight around the ass to make it worth it.

No, stiletto sandals like that make him mourn the fact that he fell in love with a man. Dean would probably acquiesce to wearing anything Luci suggested but it isn’t the same. Clothes don’t have a gender, but they can accentuate masculinity and femininity. For Dean, he prefers masculine clothes for the lovely contrast to his obscenely pretty face. If he could add some dainty lacy underpants to further the contrast, it would be perfection. Mikey on the other hand… he’d never agree to wear clothes that accentuate his feminine sides, no matter how well it would suit him. Maybe if Dean asked…? It’s worth pondering.

* * *

“You can drop me off. You don’t need to come inside with me.”

“Nice try, sweet pea,” Luci responds and kills the engine. He gets out and all but skips around the hood to open the door for Claire. 

She giggles in bemusement. “Eager much? If you really want to get rid of me that much you can―”

“That’s not it. Come on,” he urges and leads her towards the door with a hand between her shoulder blades. He refrains from letting his hand slide down her back when they stop to ring the doorbell. 

Jess opens almost immediately. “Nick, Claire! Come in, I’ll just be a minute,” she greets them with a smile and a hug each before hurrying into the house. “ _Honey_! They’re here!”

“Coming!” There’s some clattering in the kitchen, then Sam comes out from the kitchen with the baby on his arm, bottle feeding her with Jess’ milk. He smiles and opens his mouth to speak but is promptly interrupted by the toddler who peeks from behind his legs and gives a delighted squee at seeing Luci.

“Unka Uuie!” Noah calls out and comes running. Luci picks him up and spins him around, a glow inside his chest from Noah’s squealed laughter. He collects Noah in a one-handed grip, so he’s perched on his forearm, ankles gripped in Luci’s hand and Noah’s own small arms hugging his neck too fucking tight. The things you put up with from children.

“Two years old and you still can’t talk for shit,” Luci grins.

“Language,” Jess reprimands from the living room.

Noah giggles. “Oh, excuuuse me. Two years old and your pronunciation is excremental,” Luci corrects and nuzzles the small boy. He smells good. Just like his little sister. Small children always do. ...Except when they need a diaper change.

Another giggle and― “Ekke-metta.”

Luci sniggers. “That’s right. Excremental. It basically means shit.”

“Ekker-mettal,” Noah tries again.

“You’ll get there, buddy. Now, let’s practise a much more important word. _Luci_.”

“Uuie.”

“No, no, no. I know you can say both L and S. Let’s try again. Lu-ci.” It’s far better than being called ‘Ick’. He much rather be uncle uuie than uncle ick.

“Luuie.”

“Better! Well done, champ.” Soon enough, the boy’s going to get it right.

Sam keeps himself in the background and Claire studies Luci with an amused smile.

Jess comes sweeping back in, pretty white sundress swirling around hips and legs. “I swear, my kids will know the most swear words in the neighbourhood thanks to you and Dean,” she mutters with a dark look belied by her repressed smile.

“Ekkermental!” Noah agrees and giggles again.

“Very good!” Luci praises. “Hey, Jess. Here’s a card for Claire’s shopping,” he prompts and hands her a VISA card. “No drugs, booze, or firearms,” he jokes.

“How about cigarettes?” Claire asks slyly.

“Cigarettes are fine.”

“ _Hey_!” Jess slaps Luci’s shoulders lightly in reprimand. “Ready to go?” Jess asks Claire and gets a nod. Jess gives Sam a kiss on the cheek and then breezes out, taking Claire with her.

Luci turns towards Sam. He can see how Sam tries to hide his nerves about being left alone with him. “What time are your in-laws picking up the miniatures, Sammy?”

“They should be here any minute.”

“Really?” Luci purrs. “In that case, maybe I should stick around for a bit before I have to go to work. We can… _talk_.”

Sam swallows visibly, cheeks heating up and gorgeous dimpled smile widening. He bends his neck, hiding his eyes behind hair. “Yeah, yeah. Um. I’d, I’d like that,” he flusters.

Sometimes dancing the dance is just as rewarding as actually crossing the line. At least he knows that alone with Sam, his mind won’t be the only mind flashing tempting impulses to resist…

* * *


	6. His Bitch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire has a gift. A gift for mindfuckery. She certainly is giving Luci a mindfuck and tension is ramping up.

The music’s blaring and Luci’s drinking by himself, sinking a bottle of Jack that he keeps on the stairs while he jumps around. He’s playing air guitar to the music and tries to get the images of Dean and Cas out of his mind. Claire really did a number on him this morning. Why the hell would Cas leave when he could stay and watch? Dean fucking _loves_ to show off. And after Dean had shut the laptop off, all Cas would have had to do was sweep in. Dean was already prepped by his own needy fingers. Too easy. And Claire’s _right_. The thrill of balancing on the edge of getting caught makes things a 100 times more arousing.

He himself is toeing that line with Sam, but without actually doing anything. Just soaking up the delicious tension and all the would-be-could-bes. Innuendos, flirting, and a stray touch here and there. If Cas did it to Dean, but much more frequently alone, it wouldn’t take too long to wear him down. Dean’s been visiting Cas alone for years now. With Balt and Meg out of the house, there are no witnesses.

Luci’s downstairs not to disturb Claire. He spots her naked feet in the shadows of the stairwell. He ignores her. Let her watch him get hammered and play air guitar all she wants.

She must think he doesn’t know she’s there. Why else would she snatch his bottle and sneak upstairs? A few minutes later he notes her coming back down, putting the bottle back before disappearing back up again.

He grabs his bottle and takes a couple of deep swallows. It’s been diluted by water. She must take him for a drunk idiot. She’s not wrong, by all means. He’s just not drunk enough not to notice when his drink has been tampered with, and the whiskey’s been watered down _a lot._

* * *

Luci’s fingers are itching. Claire’s got her braids messed up again. He tries focusing on his newspaper. There’s one piece of news that would stir up a real fuss if Mikey and Dean were at home. He’d really like to hear their morning discussion about it since he’s got no idea if this is good or bad for them. Over in California the CEO of Sandover has been arrested for a number of sex-related crimes. It’s unsavory enough to involve minors, one as young as fourteen. The article contains words like ‘BDSM’, ‘rape’, ‘child prostitution’, and ‘non-consensual drugging’. Not words any business wants to be associated with. He’s going to have to call Mikey to check if Sandover is a prospect, competition, or an ally. Once upon a time, he couldn’t have cared less for news like this. These days, though, the family business means something to him.

“I don’t feel so well. I’m sick. I can’t go to work today.”

He almost laughs. Honestly, he’d been waiting for this. She’d looked pitiful since she entered the kitchen. “You’re not sick, you’re hungover, same as me.”

“I’m _not_.”

“Sure you are. Not only did you steal whiskey from me, you also drank it the night before a workday. You’re going to work. End of discussion.” She opens her mouth to protest, but he interrupts her. “You think I didn’t see you? Sweetheart, believe me, I’m unconscious before I stop keeping track of my drink.”

“Pfft. Like anyone would want to roofie you.”

He doesn’t tell her that there are many other reasons besides rape, why someone would want to render someone unconscious. Especially an assassin. He puts his chin in palm, supported on his elbow, and gives her a closelipped shiteating smirk. “Mmh. You would have succeeded, though. I drank all the watered down crap you gave back to me.”

She frowns in bemused disgust. “Why would _I_ want to roofie you? Is this another one of your perverted sex fantasies?”

He scoffs and shakes his head, then goes back to his newspaper. “And here I thought you were smart,” he mutters. Maybe he should be thankful that drugging him to escape the house unsupervised doesn’t occur to her.

* * *

He finds Claire outside on the loading dock, a pack of cigarettes in her hand while smoking. She jumps in startlement when he comes up from behind and snatches the pack from her hand.

“Hey! You said I could buy them! _You_ said it! Those were _your_ words,” she protests.

He ignores her in favour of tapping out a cig, putting it in his mouth, and lighting it with the lighter he finds in the pack. Then he hands the pack and lighter back and takes a long, deep drag on the cig, closing his eyes as the nicotine hits. “And you _always_ listen to what I say,” he retorts sarcastically and lets the smoke out.

“You’re not going to yell at me?”

“What for?” He takes another deep drag and vows to stop and buy cigarettes on the way home. He’d stopped for Mave’s sake, but Dean hadn’t. It’s regrettable. Not smoking indoors at home and here will have to do. Better lay down the rules. He opens his eyes to find her looking at him dubiously. “No smoking indoors. Not hanging out of the windows either. You need to smoke at home, you go outside and close the door behind you. And while at work, only take breaks when there are no customers. Make it short and not too often.”

“Okay?”

He takes one more long drag on his cig until he can feel the filter heating up. He drops the butt and squishes it. “When you’ve finished that I want you to pick the dead flowers of the pelargonium.”

“Ew. They stink when they break.”

“I know. That’s why I’m asking you to do i―” His phone rings, cutting him off. It’s Mikey. “Hey. S’up?”

“ _Have you done the paperwork I asked for?_ ”

“Not yet. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“ _Luci, I needed it done yesterday._ ”

Luci scrunches up his face in displeasure. “Can’t Hester do it?” he whines.

“ _No. You go do that damned paperwork. Right. Now!_ ” Michael’s as bad as Dean is sometimes.

“Alright, alright,” he grumps and turns to walk inside. Behind him, he hears Claire giggle and mimic the sound of a whip. Fucking cunt.

* * *

She seems determined to test his patience. He opens the bathroom cabinet to take a new blister strip of painkillers just to find one pill missing. He groans in frustration. She might not realise it, but unless Dean’s at home, he knows exactly how many pills he’s still got left. Even then he keeps track. The only difference is that he wouldn’t raise an eyebrow if a whole strip went missing. However, mostly Dean goes through him if he needs pills, opting to let Luci give him pills or blister strips to help keep track of whether Dean’s using, or abusing. It’s quite long since any of them truly abused painkillers. All for the sake of their dog. But Mave’s with Mikey. Luci pops three pills all at once, pockets the strip, and goes to yell at his delinquent teenager.

He opens her door without knocking, prepared to chew her out. The words stick in his throat. She’s on her belly in her bed, watching a comedy on her iPad, giggling. She’s wearing that oversized sleeping shirt again, but it’s bunched up in the small of her back and today she’s got nothing but a white G-string, showing her pert little ass to him, legs spread wide enough for him to see how the panties follow the lines of her pussy. It sparks a whole range of bad ideas. He remains staring, enjoying each and every idea, as well as enjoying the possible reactions. Fuck, having a young, attractive woman under his roof was a bad idea. What the hell were Mikey and Dean thinking?

She's wearing headphones. He could probably stare for an hour without her noticing. He considers doing just that. Soaking up all those sweet giggles and reveling in the dark options presented to him.

He closes the door and heads downstairs to his _real_ office, beyond the playroom. He can scold her later. 

Instead, he goes through his target’s file again. He's done some mapping out of his next target while Claire was shopping with Jess. He needs to plan some more before he can take action. It’s one of those lovely free-hand jobs, where it doesn’t matter if the target just disappears, if he ‘commits suicide’, has an accident, or is found murdered. Luci prefers when they disappear to when they need to be found for the purpose to be fulfilled. It means he can take his time. Have some fun, be creative. He’d given Dean a promise not to make it about sex. It’s an impossible promise to keep because his libido always triggers on violence, making sex and murder basically the same to him. He’s reinterpreted it into a possible promise - not to fuck or grope his targets. Anything to make Dean happy.

...Just like Cas probably reasons before Dean comes to visit.

He punches the wall.

* * *

Claire comes down early for breakfast. He’s still prepping, cutting fruit. It’s not his own idea to decorate the food like this, but he does take pride in the artistry he puts into his efforts every day. So much that it annoys him a bit when she ruins it by eating it, even if that is the point of the exercise.

Claire’s wearing simple jeans shorts and an equally nondescript tee, not anything that registers on his radar as more than dissatisfactory.

He’s slicing carambole when she walks behind him, brushing her chest against his back while heading for the coffee maker. He doesn’t let his face show how much that startles him. He’s instantly suspicious.

She pours a cup of coffee, takes a sip then goes to jump up on the workbench beside him, dangling her legs.

“You going to tell me another lie about why you can’t work today?”

“No,” she answers. “I’m fit as a fiddle.”

He grunts. She’s up to something. He just knows it.

As to confirm she puts the cup down and reaches out to touch him, sliding a hand around his bicep. He stills and looks up, yet she doesn’t remove her hand. A thumb strokes as if she’s feeling the muscle underneath his shirt. He withholds the impulse to flex. “Hey, I was thinking…”

_Here it comes._

“...you said we’d get off from work at 4 already.”

“Uhuh…?”

“Could you drop me off at the mall? Just for, like, two or three hours?”

“No.”

“Come on. It isn’t that late. I’m not wearing anything you’d consider slutty. I’m not gonna do anything stupid.”

Luci hums with a close-lipped smile. He dries the small knife off on his pant leg and slowly moves, sidestepping to position himself in front of her. She spreads her legs to let him stand between them. It makes his heart speed up. She has no good reason to do so. He puts his hands on either side of her on the bench and leans in far too close. “ _No_.”

“Why not?” Her eyes, only with modest makeup today, are big and innocent. It makes him feel like the big, bad wolf and he fucking _likes_ it. He knows it’s a ruse. There’s nothing innocent about her.

He tilts his head and raises a hand to stroke hair out of her face, hitching it behind her ear. He can see her pulse speed up on her throat, cheeks flushing lightly. “Because, darling. We’re having trust issues. Yesterday…” He drops his hand and leans closer, rubbing his nose against her cheek. Her breath hitches. He puts his lips against the shell of her ear and purrs “...you _stole_ from me,” at the same time as he raises the knife, digs the point into her shirt, the sharp side towards himself, and cuts upward. The fabric parts like melted butter from between her breasts up to the collar. Her chest starts heaving, breath becoming rapid. He shifts to rest his forehead against hers, her breath hits him―hot puffs in the face, smelling toothpaste, coffee, and possibly vanilla lip smacker. It’s a fucking feat not to claim a taste. “See, sweetling, I know exactly how much I have of _everything_ ,” he tells her with a friendly smile, scraping the blunt edge of the knife along her throat. She sucks in a breath and holds it, closing her eyes. “I’ll know if a painkiller goes missing. I also know it’s nice to get high, so if you want one, you’ll have to ask. Most likely, I'll say no. But if you’ve been a really good girl, I might pop a pill from the strip, and place it…” he drops his knife-hand to the bench and uses his other hand to place his index finger on her lower lip, pulling it down to reveal her pearly whites. “... _riiight… here…_ ”

She starts breathing again, quick and shallow. He can see how fast and hard her heart is beating on her throat, feel how her face has gotten hotter, sweat moistening her forehead. Her mouth falls open, swallowing his controlled exhale. He's fiercely satisfied. He wonders what else she'll let him do before she protests.

Her eyes open wide, terrified and glossy. She isn't crying but it's a near thing. He'd _so_ like to see her cry. He can feel his body start to react to her fear. That tickling sensation in his groin―the stage before his dick starts to fill. 

“You're insane,” Claire whispers, mouth dry.

“Mhm,” he agrees nodding, wearing an amused smile. “I thought we'd established that in the gym? And yet, you steal from me.” He tuts chastisingly and uses both hands to part and smooth out the lapels he's created on her formerly boring shirt. He looks down, and suddenly it's no game anymore. Either she’s not wearing a bra, or has one of those with only thin fabric, because he can see how her nipples have hardened. She’s spread her legs wider without him noticing, welcoming him closer in either arousal or surrender. Combined with her fear it’s a lethal combination.

#  _**MINE!** _

It’s like throwing a lit match on gasoline. Every fibre in his body flares with possessive want. His knife-hand twitches with the wish to cut her out of her clothes and make her scream. In pain or pleasure doesn’t matter. Both, preferably. He’d really like to know if she’s turned on beneath the fear or if it’s just surrender. He can’t find that out without overstepping his bounds. He meets her gaze again. “You know, darling, one of these days I’m going to lose my patience with you.” He drags his finger over her lower lip. “When that happens, it’ll be your own fault. I keep warning you, but you just don’t listen.” He smears the lip smacker he’d gotten on his finger on his own lips then licks them. Vanilla. Like he thought. “Now go change clothes to something you feel more comfortable in. Breakfast will be ready in ten.”

He steps away from her, rinses the knife, and goes back to cutting fruits as if he’s completely unaffected by what just transpired. As if he’s not struggling to rein himself in. As if his heart isn’t hammering as fast and hard as hers, but for the opposite reason. He’s the shark smelling blood in the water, the lion who finds an abandoned buffalo calf, the wolf in the sheep pasture.

She jumps off the counter and leaves the kitchen at a normal pace, head held high.

It makes him want her even more.

* * *

He’s surprised that she shows up again ten minutes later. Like he hadn’t just threatened and molested her. She has changed her clothes―black blouse, short, pleated, red plaid skirt, combat boots―and put on more makeup, going back to her sooty look.

_Yes. That’s my girl. That’s how I want you to look._

He gives her an appreciative once-over and a smirk before going back to his newspaper. He can feel her staring for the greater part of the breakfast. “I want to teach you self-defence,” he tells her once he’s finished his sandwich.

“So I can fend you off?” she jokes with a little smile.

He chuckles, pleasantly surprised that she so easily acknowledges what happened earlier. “Darling, you weren’t even trying.”

“I wouldn’t have had a chance.” Her eyes are bright and playful. Not what he’d expect. 

“Mmmh. Not really, no. But you _were_ sitting beside a knife rack. I want to train you, so you would stand a chance in a situation like that. ...Not against me, of course.”

“Of course,” she agrees dryly.

When it makes him chuckle, she giggles along. “So what do you say? Let me train you?”

“No. You just want a reason to pin me down and give me a thumping,” she challenges.

Luci scoffs. “I’ve got plenty of reasons for that already. I want you to be able to defend yourself.”

“Dean can teach me when he comes back.”

He scrunches his face up in annoyance. “Why? I’m a much better fighter than he is.” Honestly, he’s offended.

“Anna said he kicked your ass so bad you ended up in the hospital once. He had a broken arm and a leg injury while doing it.”

Luci rolls his eyes. Trust Anna to be a gossip rag. “ _Once._ He took me by surprise and he was in a fucking killing rage. His first hit almost knocked me out. Have you ever been in a killing rage? When you can’t feel pain and don’t give a shit if you die or not? You sure as hell weren’t in the gym, nor here in the kitchen. And you wouldn’t be able to muster the force needed to knock me out in one punch. Trust me, I’m the better fighter between Dean and I. Hand to hand combat was my fucking job. I had a 17-year long career doing nothing but fucking people up.”

“Dean was a soldier too.”

“An _engineer_. Yes, he’s got training. He’s pretty good. But he’s nowhere _near_ as skilled as I am. Why would you choose the worse option?” he argues with growing frustration. Dean’s job, in the army just as in the family business, is to _avoid_ direct conflict.

She giggles. “You’re kinda cute when you get all riled up and offended,” she coos and gets up from the chair. “I’ll wait for you outside. I’m gonna have a smoke.” To make matters worse, Claire winks at him over her shoulder when she leaves the kitchen. The fucking bitch.

When he comes outside he already has a cigarette pinched between his lips. Claire lights it for him while he locks the door. “You going to let me train you, or not?” he asks. You can’t force someone to practise self-defence. He wants her to learn. It requires her cooperation.

“Maybe. I’ll think it over.” Her eyes twinkle in amusement.

He grunts in dissatisfaction. “Come on. We can smoke in the car.” 

In the car, he blasts music he thinks she hates, replays the possibilities from the kitchen situation in his mind, and struggles not to put his hand on her naked thigh. The little bitch is getting under his skin. 

_His_ little bitch.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment. It's such a great inspiration for me, okay? <3


	7. Drunk Delinquent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire slips out of Luci's grasp and is brought home in a cop car. Luci isn't thrilled.

The unknown number calls at 23:14. Luci picks up with a frown. “Nick Williams, speaking?”

“Mr. Williams? I’m officer Jordan Wright of the Police department. I think we have your daughter in custody. A Claire Williams?”

“ _It’s Claire **Novak** , not Williams!_” Claire hollers in the background.

Luci groans and wonders when the fuck she got out. She’d been watching a movie in her room last time he checked on her after dinner. “She’s my adopted niece. What did she do? Is she hurt?”

“No, Sir. But she is severely intoxicated. We picked her up for jaywalking.”

“Lovely. I swear, I’ll ground that girl until she turns thirty. Where is she? Are you taking her to the slammer or the hospital? Or can I pick her up?”

“Is she staying at…” the cop lists their address.

“That’s correct.”

“In that case, we can drop her off. Since she’s a minor and has no prior offences we’re prepared to let this one slide.”

“Thank you, officer Wright. I’m at home. I’d like to see her safe and tucked in as soon as possible.”

After he’s hung up he checks his phone and sees the notification at the top. She’d gone out the window at 19:36. He’d missed the notification because his phone was in the living room and he’d taken a leak. “I fucking hate that little cunt,” he mutters.

It only takes minutes for the cop car to show up. He lets them through the gate and goes out to talk to them. Claire is sitting in the back, leaned forward with her head in her hands. Her hair is messy and covers her face. There’s a brief discussion about her whether her level of intoxication requires her to go to the hospital but officer Wright doesn’t think so, as long as she’s supervised. They’ve confiscated a fake ID too. He gets to see it and withholds a curse at how badly done it is. He reminds himself that it isn’t a good idea to supply her with a better one. One of the cops helps Claire out of the car. She can barely stand. Luci goes to grab her and waves the cops off. She keeps tipping over, mumbling complaints in French. “Fuck sake.” It’s easier to just hoist her up and carry her inside. Of course, just as he’s gotten her inside, she twists in his grip and throws up on him. 

He takes a deep breath and counts to ten before continuing upstairs and into the grand bathroom. He lets her down beside the toilet. “Here. Throw up,” he tells her calmly. She makes a suffering noise but doesn’t throw up. 

_Why would she, when she wouldn’t hit me with her puke?_

He grunts in annoyance. Her hair falls down over her face. If she’s going to throw up, it’s going to get in her hair. He crouches down and pulls it away from her face. She makes another pitiful noise. She’s drunk too much, too fast. It means all the alcohol hasn’t hit her system yet. He’s gonna have to force her to throw up. He can’t do that and hold her hair at the same time. “Wait here, sweetheart. I’ll be right back.”

He gets up and leaves the room. First he heads downstairs to the washing room. There he strips out of his soiled clothes and stuffs them in the washer. He doesn’t start the machine since he might have to wash more clothes before the night is over. He dresses in a clean tee and a pair of sweatpants straight from the dryer and heads upstairs. He picks up a brush and some elastic hair bands from back in the days when Dean was kind enough to have hair long enough to braid, then heads back to the bathroom.

Claire’s managed to throw up, but only partially in the toilet. Her arm’s rested on the toilet seat, and her cheek against the arm. She’s got vomit on her face and clothes, but miraculously not in her hair.

Yet. 

He crouches down beside her, uncaring of what he puts his knees in. Her eyes are only partially open, but he can see them follow his movements. He puts his hand on her back. “Think you can sit up straight for me just for a minute, darling?”

She mumbles something unintelligible and struggles to a slightly more centered position. It’s all he needs. “I’m just gonna get your hair out of the way, okay?” Luci warns before he quickly brushes her hair, then with deft fingers does a greek braid that loops like a crown around her head and is collected in a bun at the back. No risk of it all falling forward now. “There. All done. Now hang back over the toilet. I need you to spew up every last drop of booze still in your stomach. Have you done any drugs too? Be honest. I’m not going to get mad. I just need to know what I’m dealing with.”

“ _No_...” Claire whines miserably.

“Good. Good. Try to get the rest up, darling.” He rubs her back soothingly while she hugs the toilet, head hanging inside the bowl. She tries retching, without any luck. He can’t have that. He gets up, washes his hands and sits down beside her again, drying off only one hand on his pant leg. The dry hand goes to stroke her back soothingly again. “Claire, sweetheart. I’m going to stick my fingers down your throat. The longer this takes, the more alcohol will be absorbed by your body, and you’ve already had more than enough,” he informs her. He doesn’t give her much time to digest before he turns words into actions.

Claire gags and heaves. This time she manages to puke once. He does it again until she’s heaving over and over, emptying herself completely. He fetches a glass of water and helps her to drink, which makes her puke again. He fetches more water for her to rinse her mouth with when the dry heaves have subsided. Then more water to drink that she manages to keep this time.

“T’ss soo hmjiiatin’,” Claire slur-sniffles.

“Hey, hey…” Luci coos and strokes her back again. “We’ve all been there. I and Dean more than others… but even Cas has drunk himself into this state. Only once, by all means. When he said ‘I’ll never drink this much again’ he meant it. But it’s part of growing up, okay?”

She sniffles and hangs her head. Throwing up had made her a bit more alert, but she’s still completely wasted.

“Claire. I’m going to start the shower, then help you undress if you can’t do it yourself. You’re gonna get this vomit washed off of you, then I’m going to have you eat something and drink more water before I’ll let you sleep. You understand?”

She nods and sniffles again. He leaves her side to start the shower, then preps her bedside with a bucket for vomiting if needed. He fetches her sleeping shirt and a clean pair of underwear, choosing the biggest ones he can find in her drawer. When he comes back she’s tried taking her shirt off and got stuck. He efficiently helps her out of her clothes and into the shower. She can’t stand. In her shape she’s got no muscle strength or coordination so he makes short work out of washing her with a washcloth, towelling her off, and get her into her sleeping clothes. He even helps her brush her teeth, triggering another dry heave. He carries her to her bed, putting her in recovery position, making sure her head hangs over the edge of the bed so if she vomits again when he leaves her, she won’t choke on it. “I’ll be back in a minute. I’ll go fetch something to eat for you.”

He goes downstairs, changes clothes again, fixes a sandwich with honey for the blood sugar, some salty crackers, and grabs two bottles of water. Claire’s asleep when he comes back upstairs but wakes up when he shakes her shoulder. He gets her to sit up and eat, and she manages to drink one whole bottle of water. She’s a bit more present and less uncoordinated once she’s eaten it all. Those are good signs. He allows her to lie down again and tucks her in this time, wanting her to be warm.

Once that’s done he cleans up the mess she’s made, throws everything dirty in the wash, and goes back to keep vigil on the chair in the corner of her room. He shakes her awake a couple of times just to make sure that he can. If he couldn’t he would have called 911.

* * *

He startles awake by someone touching his knee. Claire’s wrapped in her blanket, sitting on her bedside looking terribly hungover. “What are you doing in my room?” she asks without reproach.

“Making sure you don’t die of alcohol poisoning. What time is it?”

“Eight.”

“Fuck. We're late. Down the water on your nightstand and get yourself ready. We can eat in the car.”

“We're going?”

“Those are the rules of drinking on a workday.”

Claire makes a suffering noise and Luci can relate. He doesn’t handle sleep deprivation half as well as he did when he was younger. Optimally he needs seven hours to be human. He’d gotten maybe two and a half. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep. It’s easier to stay awake for longer than it is to get just a little sleep.

“How did I get here?” Claire wonders and rubs her eyes.

“The police picked you up for jaywalking and drove you home.”

“No. I mean, I remember that. How did I get to bed? Last thing I remember I was hanging off the toilet.”

“I’ll fill you in, in the car. Now get ready.” He gets up and leaves the room. The ground feels a bit spongy. He almost considers taking a cab to work. Almost. But then he can’t smoke in the car, so he doesn’t.

* * *

Luci gives her a play by play in the car. She nibbles her breakfast sandwich, looking out of the window. She doesn't seem as smug about having thrown up all over him as he'd expected. “You saw me naked,” she states as they turn onto the parking lot outside of the plant nursery. 

“Mh. I helped you wash and dress too.”

She mumbles something under her breath in French. 

He cuts the engine but doesn't get out. “Claire. Look at me.” Very reluctantly, she does. He can see a quiet sort of desperation in her eyes. “If there's one time you can be a 100% sure that I'm not leering or taking any sexual pleasure out of touching, it's when I'm worried about the health of someone I give a shit about. Alcohol poisoning is serious business. You can die from it. That's why I stayed in your room. To make sure you weren't getting worse or threw up in your mouth and choked. I didn't take advantage of you in that state, Claire. Trust me.”

She stares at him, mournful and unreadable. He feels accused of a crime he sure as hell didn’t commit. He _could_ have, but he didn’t. In fact, it hadn’t crossed his mind. The need to defend himself rises. “Would you have preferred to wake up covered in your own sick? Trust me, darling, it ain’t something to write home about. Been there, done that.”

She shakes her head and looks out over the almost empty parking lot. “No. I'm surprised you even touched me at all. I must have been so pathetic and gross…”

“I take care of what belongs to m―“ He cuts off and rubs a hand over his mouth, directing his gaze out of the window. “What I'm saying is. You're my responsibility. It wouldn't matter if you were covered in your own shit, I'd still clean you up and get you back on your feet.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“Fucking furious. I _should_ have left your mess intact so you could learn a lesson about consequences, having to clean it up yourself. I’m also still deliberating what repercussions will hit you for this. The jury’s still out on that. Now come on. We’ve got work to do.”

* * *

He was planning to work her extra hard today as part of a lesson about drinking on a workday. She sure as hell looks miserable and suffering, which is the point. He just hadn’t counted on it being one of those days when they had an influx of extra customers for no apparent reason. On top of that everything that can go wrong - does. By the end of the day, they’re all dead on their feet. Luci especially. Since Claire’s hungover she’s a bit better off by the time they get off, but he’s worse for the wear, feeling his age. Sleeping two-something hours in a chair has left him with a crick in his neck that evolves into a punishing headache within hours. His inside is acting up too, but he doesn’t dare take any painkillers in this state or he won’t be able to drive safely home.

Claire’s fucking chatty on the way home, retelling things Annie told her. He hates her for it, silently seething. They order McDonald's in a drive-thru since there’s no way he’ll be able to muster up the energy to cook.

“Did you fix my hair like this?”

“Mhm,” Luci answers distractedly. He’s never related more to his dad in his life. The fuck do you do with a teenager that refuses to listen? That just keeps repeating their crimes like he’d done? He’s fucking stumped about how to get Claire to listen to reason.

“How come you know how to do that?”

“Sisters. Got ‘em.”

“Bullshit. I know lots of people with sisters. That doesn’t automatically makes them good at fixing hair.”

“T’s fun.”

Claire giggles. “You think it’s fun to fix hair? That’s gay. No wonder you married a man,” she jokes.

“Mhm.”

“Annie said…”

It’s like she doesn’t get how badly he wants her to shut the fuck up. One hit. It’d be all it takes. One hit and she’d be out like a light, filling the car with blessed silence. He refrains, but it’s a near thing.

He’s unsteady on his feet walking from the car, and his fingers feel like sausages when he unlocks the door and puts his keys back in his pant pocket. He carries their food to the living room, drops the paper bag on the table, sits down on the sofa, switches on the TV and leans back.

He wakes up from the sensation of someone touching him and the loud silence of someone trying not to make a sound. Barely opening his eyes, he can see Claire through his eyelashes. She’s biting her lip in wide-eyed suspense, touching his hip lightly, fingers slowly creeping forward. He can feel her hand slide into his pocket. He closes his eyes fully and pretends to be asleep, knowing full well she’s up to no good. It feels good, though. Her warm palm sliding along the thinner fabric of the pocket, slowly, slowly. It tickles when she hooks her fingers into the ring of his keys and pulls them out. Now would be the perfect time to snake-fast grab her wrist and give her a ringing slap, scaring the shit out of her. He doesn’t. He wonders if she’s planning to steal the car? It wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe she’d do him a favour and kill herself in a car crash, ending that pesky Novak line once and for all so he didn’t have to fret about her anymore.

As soon as she’s gotten the keys she scuttles away quietly. He remains sitting a few more minutes, expecting to hear the main entrance door open and close. It doesn’t. He opens his eyes and gets to his feet, realising exactly what she’s up to. He walks downstairs to find the door to the playroom open. He walks inside to find her with her back to him, standing by the next door inside, just like he thought. He’d hoped she’d be too distracted by the things in the playroom to pay attention to that door. No such luck. She’s already gotten the right key into the lock and turned it until the hidden panel for the eye-scanner and code pad slid open, and is currently staring at it.

She shrieks and jumps in fright when he grabs her. One yank gets her off balance. He hoists her up on his shoulders and turns on his heel. “I’m getting really fucking tired of your shit, Claire. You keep this up, I _will_ hurt you. It’s like you want me to mess you up, you know that?”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I was just curious! I wasn’t going to do anything stupid, I promise!”

“It was stupid to steal the fucking keys. You thought I wouldn’t wake up the minute you laid hands on me? Did you? You stupid fucking cunt,” Luci bites out, stomping up the stairs. “If we’ve forbidden you to go somewhere, it’s for a good fucking reason. You think we put up rules for the fucking fun of it? _Do you?_ ” He rips her door open and throws her on the bed. She bounces, hits the back of her head on the wall and scrambles back towards it, pulling her legs and elbows towards her chest, pressing her hands over her mouth, fearful tears rolling down her pale cheeks, blue eyes wide and scared to death.

He can feel the tang of copper in his mouth, nostrils flaring, chest heaving. He’s tethering on the edge. He opens his leather belt and pulls it out of its loops with one yank. Her shriek of fear is muffled by her hands. In the back of his mind pictures flashes. Of Mikey’s unconscious, bloodied body. It had taken his dad two solid hits to the head with his mean boxing punches to be able to get Luci off of Mikey. Dean, unconscious on the dirty floor of a bar and he couldn’t stop kicking. Two men tore Luci away from Dean, and paid the price of interfering before Luci heaved Dean onto his shoulders and left.

He’s a fucking monster. The fuck would they leave a rebellious teenage girl in his care for? The fuck would they stay with him for? Dad had been right to separate him from Mikey.

He takes another step into the room, wrapping one end of the leather belt around his fist. Claire’s trembling, sniffling, staring at him like she’s never seen him before. He wonders what she sees. What Dean sees when he gets like this. A look in the mirror only shows Luci himself as he is, without a mask on. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Claire would not survive the punishment his mind suggests for her. She’s too small. Too frail. A delicate little treasure he wants to keep yet is about to break beyond repair.

He looks around the room. She’s decorated it with small knick-knacks she brought with her. A couple of posters, porcelain figurines, an old doll, books, jewelry―things that probably mean something to her. Then there’s the stuff that already was in this room. Furniture. Lamps. He grabs a lamp standing atop the chest of clothing drawers and hurls it at the wall between two posters. Claire shrieks and covers her head to protect herself from the shards flying everywhere.

“Don’t make me angry, darling. You will not like it,” he says calmly and leaves her room. He hears her sobbing as he carefully closes the door.

He goes back to the living room and sits down heavily on the couch, submerging himself in the dark river in his head.

Mikey and Dean, they’d been his size, more or less. Claire’s just a small woman with no advantages on her side except being pretty. Beauty never stopped him from destroying something when he fell over the edge. Not even his all-encompassing love for Mikey had stopped him from nearly killing him once. Dad had stopped him.

_Am I you, dad? I keep remembering your worst year. Even I was on my toes, trying not to show it. You were so angry all the time. You didn’t sleep, barely ate. You would ignite at the smallest thing. I feared you. You were the only fucking thing except being locked in, that I’ve truly been afraid of. And what did I do? I pushed and provoked. Rebelled._

_Did you have a monster inside too?_

_You must have. Maybe not as much as I do, but you did, didn’t you? But you were stronger than me. You fought it back when it was about to kill._

_How many times did I not see my own death in your eyes? Fuck. I can’t even count them._

_Thinking back, I can even see when the monster consumed you and you held it off long enough to keep it from devouring me. Your hand around my throat, your eyes black, face nearly purple, veins on your forehead protruding and pounding, fist pulled back to strike. I knew, dad. I knew I couldn’t survive when that final punch came. My lip already busted and bleeding, bump on my head. Unlike the first hits, that punch held all your power. And what did I do? I spat. Showed my teeth. Tried to rile you up even more._

_You held it back. How the fuck did you hold it back? I could see your fist trembling with the effort not to hit. You dropped me and told me to run and I fucking ran. I ran for all I was worth. How, dad? How did you find that control to let me get away? Especially when we both knew that I’d go a week tops, sometimes no more than a day before I’d do something again, purely to provoke you._

_You must have seen the same thing, looking at me, as I do, looking at Claire. In comparison to you, I was as helpless as she’s to me._

_None of the others battle this internal violence. Did I get all your bad sides?_

Luci’s eyes sting. It’s been two years since Marlon Williams shot himself and he still doesn’t know how to cope with it. How can he miss someone he hated so much? 

Moments like these he hates himself more than he ever hated his dad.

* * *

A couple of hours later he hears Claire come sneaking into the living room. He turns his head to look at her and she freezes like a deer in the headlight. She’s afraid of him, he sees it, but right now he wishes she wasn’t. He raises an eyebrow in question. 

“I’m hungry. I hadn’t had my dinner yet,” she answers and looks ready to flee back into her room at first sight of anger.

He looks at the forgotten McDonald’s bag on the table. “Neither have I. ‘Fraid foods cold by now.”

She lets out a nervous giggle that’s quickly cut off. “I figured.”

“You want something else you’re going to have to fix it yourself. I’m too fucking tired.”

“No, no,” she hastens to reassure. “It’s fine. I can reheat it in the microwave. Do you want me to reheat yours too?”

“Thanks, darling. But I’m good.”

She approaches the table cautiously, giving him a tentative smile that he returns tiredly. It relaxes her enough to take the bag, pick out his stuff and put it on the table in front of him. “Do you want something from the kitchen?”

“A beer would be nice,” he answers.

“I’ll get it for you,” she assures and scuttles off with the paper bag.

When she returns a couple of minutes later she has her reheated burger and fries along with his beer. He thanks her when she hands him the beer. She sits down in the couch by the other armrest. “What are you watching?”

“Lots of unrealistic explosions, a black comedic sidekick, and a white tough guy hero who drinks too much and uses too many crappy one-liners. Fuck knows what the movie’s called. There are too many like it. The sorry excuse for plot has me about as nauseous as you were yesterday.”

She giggles. Still nervous. He winks at her and takes a bite of his cold burger.

She relaxes more and more in the face of his lack of anger. After they both finally have eaten their crappy meal she’s come a bit closer. He rests one of his arms on the backrest of the couch. He does it habitually without thinking about it, but to Claire it must have seemed like an invite because she scoots in under his armpit and leans her head against his chest, curling up like she’s cold and in need of his heat to survive. Maybe she does. The little girl has nobody to comfort her but the monster under her bed. He wraps his arm around her shoulders and kisses the crown of her hair once to reassure her she’s in no current danger.

“Why do you have a door with such freaky security?” she asks after a while.

“Where else would we store our stolen Nazi gold?” he jokes.

She giggles. He likes that. “No, but, like, for real?”

He turns his head to inhale the scent of her hair, rubbing his nose in it. “Some secrets it’s safer for you not to know, darling. Trust me.”

She remains quiet after that. But it’s a calm, relieved sort of quiet. He nods off again not long after. When he wakes up from the television’s automatic shutdown system she’s deeply asleep, her head in his lap and his arm around her midriff. Carefully, to disturb her as little as possible, he wriggles himself loose, then lifts her up bridal style and carries her to her bed. There’s no trace of the broken lamp anywhere. He tucks her in under her blanket, strokes her over the hair and places a goodnight kiss on her forehead before he goes to find his own bed. It’s 2 AM. He hopes tomorrow won’t be as bad as today. He hopes she’ll stop testing his limits now.

He doubts it.

* * *


	8. Enough's enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire just won't be a good girl. Lucifer snaps and shows her exactly how far out of line he can act.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't condone of Lucifer's actions here, okay? They scare the living shit out of me, to be honest. O.O

* * *

One would think it’d take at least a full day before Claire pulls some kind of shit again, right? Especially since she's acting very different today. 

It starts off with her coming down early, stroking herself against his back to get to the coffeemaker, just like when he'd threatened her with the knife. She's even wearing the same tee. His cut has been deepened to accentuate the cleavage created by a padded push-up bra. “If I help you with breakfast, will you do my hair?”

_You can start doing your own fucking breakfast. Period._

He doesn't say that, though. He suspects she'd only drink coffee if he demanded that from her. Not to mention that she's offering something he'd been itching to do for ages. 

“Fair enough. Take over and I'll go get what I need.”

Her hair, freshly washed and blowdried, slips like golden silk between his fingers. He creates an advanced (and - finally! - perfect) version of the one-sided braid-work she makes herself. It doesn't pass him by how her skin prickles while he works, grazing her neck and cheekbone. Nor does he miss the shivers and the hitched breath she tries to hide. 

At work, it's more of the same. She's helpful and flirty, touches him often, and shows herself off. The difference now is that she acknowledges that he's looking, meeting his gaze, biting her lip. She'll rub herself against him when she passes by.

He's fiercely satisfied by this. Even more so since he can see her looking at him with appreciation. Like she _should_ be doing. At lunch she sidles up behind him and massages his shoulders, cooing about how tense he is. She's not kneading hard enough to do much good. It doesn't stop him from enjoying it. 

Really, he should have anticipated that something was up. But he figured she was trying to appease him for having angered him yesterday. 

So it comes as a surprise when his phone dings with a notification that Claire's window opens. Once again he's waiting for her beside the drainpipe when she lands. She startles, seeing him. But no girly shriek this time. “I was just going to see a movie. I wasn't gonna drink anything,” she pouts.

He just stares patiently at her until she makes a frustrated noise and climbs back up again. 

_This bullshit has to stop._

He goes down to his office beyond the playroom and fetches gear, then to the garage to get tools. Once he has everything he needs he goes upstairs. Claire's door is locked but he makes short work out of picking it. Claire's cross-legged on her bed, playing with her phone, headphones on. Her head snaps up in startlement when he enters. He ignores her in favour of completing his mission. 

Opposite her bed, just under the roof, he installs one camera. Then another one above the window so he’ll be able to see all of her room as well as the hallway if the door is open.

“What is that?”

“These, my darling, are good old-fashioned surveillance cameras.” Actually, it’s not. It’s modern, state-of-the-art cameras with several handy functions. It’s not the smallest type of spy cams he has, but that’s not the point. He wants her to _know_ they’re there.

“Mon Dieu. You’re _shitting me_?”

“No.”

“That’s illegal. You can’t spy on me like that. I’ve got _rights_.”

He secures the window camera and turns around to find her staring at him disbelievingly. He gives her a faux sweet smile. “Wrong, my dear. You _had_ rights. Since I can’t trust you worth a shit, this is how it’s going to be. If you cover up the cameras I’ll get an alert. As for illegal, I care about rules about as much as you do.”

“Unless you make them,” she scoffs.

“Mhm,” he agrees with an encouraging nod.

“So what? You’re gonna watch me all the time?”

“Maybe. You’ll never know, now will you?” he chirps in amusement. Fuck, she looks so wonderfully outraged.

“You’re such a fucking pervert. Fucking freak.” 

“Yes. Yes, yes, and _yes_. I am. Whatever you call me, yes. I’m a monster that Dean, by some miracle, has domesticated. _Dean_. Nobody else. As such―”

“Sucks to be you, then,” Claire interrupts. “When he’s in France sucking Cas’ dick, making excuses about not being able to call.”

He narrowly resists the urge to break her nose. “Let me lay down the rules. From now on, you ask if you want to do something. Good or bad, doesn’t matter. I’ll say yes or no and you’ll adhere to it. No more sneaking off by yourself. No more stealing. You want to drink? You ask permission. You want to get high? You ask permission. You want to go shopping? You ask. Sneeze, or scratch your ass? You fucking _ask_.”

“Fuck you! It’s not _fair_.”

“Life’s tough. Get a helmet. This,” he points at one camera, ”you made this happen. Believe me, I have no interest in the extra burden of having to treat you like a treacherous bitch. But you _are_. You could have made it easy on yourself. Could have come down to me and gone, ‘Hey, Luci, I’m bored shitless of sitting in my room doing nothing. They’re showing a movie at the cinema that I’m willing to bet one of my lip smackers on, has an even more nauseating plot than the one we watched yesterday.’ You could have gone, ‘How many beers do you think we can sneak in without getting caught?’ or ‘Bet this comedy would be even funnier while high.’ _Pitch me a fucking sale!_ ”

Noticing he yelled that last part, he reins his rising temper in and lowers his voice again, trying to sound less like he’s about to rip her throat out and more like he’s calmly trying to talk sense into her. “Look. Claire. You’re stuck with me. For two and a half more weeks it will be just you and me. You’re choosing how our interactions will go, not I. Everything I’ve done has been responding to your behaviour. I don’t revoke your privileges for shits and giggles. I’m not your dad and I have no fucking wish to be some kind of fucking father figure to anyone so _stop_ forcing me to act like one.”

“My dad would never put up fucking cameras in my room like some perverted creep.”

Luci throws up his hands in frustration and rolls his eyes. “Of course he wouldn’t. He won’t do much of anything. He’s _dead_. Which so happens to be the reason you’ve got a perverted creep for a bunkmate. But if you stop being such a rebellious little whore, you’d see that I can fake being a perfectly normal, non-perverted, non-creepy guy.”

He turns his back on Claire’s hurt and hateful glare, grabs his tools and walks towards the door.

“Don’t take it out on me just because your husband decided two brothers aren’t enou―!”

He slams the door behind him, shutting her words out.

* * *

_Could that be a thing for Dean? Would he be gunning for Gabe next? He_ does _have a brother kink… No. Dean used to say he was one man’s man, although I know that isn’t true anymore. But he’d still require the right chemistry, the right feelings, to step out of line. He doesn’t have that with Gabe and Gabe wouldn’t fucking dare to touch him, even if Mikey and I were stuck in outer space. But Cas… the more I’ve seen of how he conducts business, the more likely I find it that he’d be that brazen. ….and Dean would add a third brother to his collection like a fucking trophy._

Claire's statements grate on him. They all serve to confirm what he already suspects. He's on his knees in the garden, weeding. In his head thoughts won't stop spinning. 

Claire comes out to join him. “I thought you'd be glued to a monitor, making sure I don't do anything stupid,” she says bitterly.

Luci looks up. She's wearing a yellow, strapless bikini top and a pair of short jeans shorts. He scrunches his face up in distaste. “You shouldn't wear yellow unless you're much more tanned. That hue makes you look pallid. And use another bikini type. That one makes it look like you've got flat little dog ears. You've got anything but.”

 

“Holy shit, now he's negging me,” Claire mutters and shakes her head to herself, staring skywards as if she’s trying to convey ‘Can you believe this crap?’ to God. 

“Telling you what I see, darling, and that doesn't look good on you. Either go change or get out of my field of vision.”

“You're so fucking mean.” She sits down beside him and glares. 

He’s too annoyed at her bikini to give a response to that. Instead, he says, “Fuck sake. Is that the only bikini you've got?”

“No.”

“Wait here.”

He gets up, removes his gloves and goes inside, heads upstairs and rummages through her clothing drawers until he finds a bikini top he approves of. He takes it with him downstairs and back out. Claire's sitting where he left her, pulling at the grass absently. 

“Sit up straight with your back to me,” he commands. She throws him a dark look over her shoulder but obeys like a good girl should. He crouches down behind her and scoots close. He lifts the bikini top over her. “Lift your arms.” She does and he pulls the ends behind her back to fasten the clasp. “Put your arms in the straps.” Again she does what she's told so he gently pulls the straps up over her shoulders. Then he unclasps the strapless abomination trapped under the new one. He reaches around her, grabs the new bikini at the front from underneath, the strapless one under it from above and pulls gently to get it off without accidentally flashing her breasts. Once it's off he drops it, adjusts the straps, purring inside at her goosebumps when he grazes her skin. She might think he’s a mean asshole, but she still wants his touch. He likes that. Likes her mixed emotions. Likes her thirst. He puts his chin on her shoulder and looks down. “That's better. See how the white makes you look tanned, and…” he runs his fingers lightly along the skin just over the edge of her bikini cleavage. “...this cut gives the illusion of bigger breasts instead of making them look like small flaps. They're perfect,” he says, cupping his hands around them without actually touching. “It's a shame to make them appear less perfect than they are…”

Claire leans back against his chest, all warm and practically naked, looking down at his hands. She smells sweet and floral mixed with a hint of sweat. He turns his head and caresses her cheek with his nose, revelling in her hitched breath. It’s fucking delicious that she reacts this way after the shit he’s pulled on her. She must be so lost and floundering, to seek out a predator like him and place herself in his maws willingly. “A padded cup would give you a nicer profile and cleavage…” She arches her back slightly, trying to press her chest into his cupped hands, but he follows the movement, preventing contact. “But personally… I prefer this. When I can see… and feel… your peaked nipples,” he murmurs into her ear and lets his fingers graze her nipples ever so lightly. 

She makes a small, throaty sound and closes her eyes, pressing her bottom more firmly against him.

He moves his fingers over her hardened nipples again, still just a ghost of a touch over the fabric of her bikini. A mere tickle. His lips brush over her cheek, feeling its softness. 

Claire, still with her eyes closed, twists her head. Suddenly he has her warbly breath right against his mouth. So close, lips parted, asking for more. 

His heart speeds up at the thrill. 

He sniffs. Aside from her lovely scent and the heat on her breath, he can smell…

He pulls back making a face. “You're a very beautiful woman, Claire, but pina colada lip smacker? I have limits. Some bullshit I only put up with if it comes with alcohol.” He moves to the side of her, puts his gloves back on, and resumes weeding the flower beds.

Claire blinks in outraged disbelief, yanked out of the erotic tease. “You’re such a fucking jerk.”

“Mmh. So I’ve been told. Care to help me weed the garden?”

“On t'a bercé trop près du mur? _No!_ ” Claire grabs her strapless yellow bikini top, gets to her feet, her small hands with their pink, painted nails, fisted at her sides.

“Figures. Would you at least stick around for viewing pleasure? You’re very pretty.”

“Mange de la merde et meurs, pute! You want pretty? _Look at your fucking flowers_.” Claire turns around and strides towards the kitchen entrance.

Luci sniggers and follows her with his gaze. “I love it when you talk dirty to me, darling,” he calls after her.

“Ta mere suce le penis d'animaux pour l'argent, enculé.” 

“That’s what I’m talking about!”

She gives him the finger without turning around, then disappears indoors. He smirks to himself.

_That’s my girl…_

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment. :) Even if it's just to rant about what an asshole Luci is. ;)


	9. A Sore Toe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucifer is fretting and Claire does what she was told for once, much to Luci's chagrin.

Sleep. Who needs it? When you can lie awake and stew in anxiety instead? Not Luci, obviously. No, he is too busy fretting because he's going to be caught doing something he should _not_ have done. Threatening Claire with a knife, assaulting her in the gym, installing the cameras, massaging her when she had a headache―all these things he could get away with. He had valid reasons. But what happened in their garden today? There's no excuse for that. ‘I gave her fashion tips?’ wouldn't cut it. Dean wouldn't leave him for it, but he'd be in trouble. It's not like Luci would _tell_ him. But if Claire told and Dean asked outright if it was true? Then he'd have no choice but to come clean. Never lie, but withhold a shitload of stuff - that is the deal. 

Luci reaches out to the nightstand to grab his phone. He opens an app. 12 cameras currently activated. All of them currently on his next kill since he can't stalk the guy with Claire to care for. They'd have to be removed before the hit. It's not a problem. It isn't the first time he'd run surveillance from afar.

He opens the control panel and chooses ‘Active cameras’, then hits the ten digit codes for the two cameras in Claire's room. A couple of seconds later the indicator shows 14 cameras activated. 

He wasn't going to do this, he was supposed to keep them switched off. Just having them there should have created enough uncertainty in Claire. And yet here he is, clicking on one of the cameras and Claire's room pops into view. His treacherous little shrew is sleeping and the camera is in night mode, bereaving him of colour. Her hair’s fanned out over the pillow, the comforter bundled up and used like a body pillow. She has her sleeping shirt on along with a simple pair of panties.

Her actions, as exasperating as he finds them, make sense when he mulls it over. She lost her parents and got adopted by a man that looks like her dad and tries to _be_ her dad. Cas, the stupid fuck, changed her name in the adoption, stealing her identity to truly make her a part of the family. Of course, she’s going to resist. She never got to put a word in. She hadn’t had time to fully come to terms with her loss before Cas started introducing the Williams siblings as uncles and aunts. Without meaning to, he stole her past and what had made her who she is. In his eagerness to integrate her, he’d moved her away from friends and all that was familiar, then went all mother hen with only one chicken, limiting her freedom. She doesn’t _want_ to be part of the family. Her lack of loyalty pisses Luci off. He gets it, though.

What really irks Luci is that he likes her. He wants her to want to stick around. He loves her fire, her anger, her rebellious streak. He wishes it wasn’t directed at him. That she’d let him be a good guy, take care of her properly. Cooperate. Now he’s acting all ugly and she still seeks him out and lets him touch.

He touches the image of his sleeping girl on the screen. It’s her fault he’s acting the way he does. It’s not his fault. He has to, to complete his task. Keep her safe.

_His_ girl.

And that’s where the danger lies. She’s gonna sell him out to Dean and he’s fucked.

The possessiveness is something he can’t control. Acting on it? Mh. Well. Most of the time. But the feeling is a hassle. A hot ember in the pit of his stomach that tells him he’s got the _right_ , whatever his brain tells him others would say on the matter.

Suddenly his phone buzzes with an incoming Skype call. 

It’s Dean, of all people.

Heart hammering with guilt, he accepts the call.

“Surprise!” Dean greets him impishly. “Did I wake you up?”

“No. It’s good to see you but why are you calling? Did something happen?”

“Yeah,” Dean admits with a rueful smile. “I messed up. Lost the trust of Mr. Georgei.”

“You coming home early?” Luci asks hopefully.

“Nah. All ain’t lost. Mr. Georgei agreed to a meeting in two days, with my ‘twin brother’ in Greece.” Dean does air quotes around ‘twin brother’, a gesture he’s started doing more and more since he got chummy with Cas. “Hence, this,” Dean gestures at his face. The beard has been trimmed to a goatee, he isn’t wearing a wig, but his normal, short hair has been coloured black with hints of silver at the temples. “I’ll repair my mistake, no worries. Gabe’s setting things up so I stopped by at Cas’ to fix my disguise. I was thinking…” He pulls off his shirt. “...to put a tribal tattoo here on the pec and arm, letting it go up a bit on my neck, then add a pair of glasses. What do you think?” 

Dean’s been gesturing at the mentioned body parts and when he pointed at his neck Luci saw something that got his blood freezing and his temper rising. “Darling, there’s a _hickey_ on your neck.”

“What? Oh, fuck’s sake.” Dean scowls, gets up and walks in the room. “Hold on.” He sticks his head out of the door and yells “ _Dammit, Cas! The fuck did I tell you? I’ll kick your ass for this!_ ” He slams the door then goes back to where he’d been sitting on the bed. “Sorry about that. Cas did it when he heard I was gonna skype you. I pushed him off. I’ve told him not to mark me. Didn’t think he’d succeeded.” He grins again, eyes crinkling. “Your brother’s a little shit. Won’t miss an opportunity to mess with you. Guess he won’t be coming to the next family reunion, huh?”

Plausible. Too far, but plausible.

Still, Luci doesn’t believe it for a minute. Dean acting all candid and open about it could be because he’s telling the truth. But it would also serve to cover up the real truth. And Dean telling Cas not to mark him? Most likely it’s to avoid getting caught cheating.

Dean’s his usual perky self the rest of the call. Luci wants him home right away.

The problem with the Dean and Cas situation is that if he calls them out, he’ll have to act on it. If they know he knows, his hand will be forced. He’ll have to hurt two people he loves and doesn’t want to harm. (Isn’t that a dilemma his dad struggled with?)

He ends the call and once again Claire’s sleeping form pops into view.

_Maybe I can even the score instead? ….No. Don’t go there. Not now. Not ever. I'm not that dumb._

He shuts down the app and puts his phone back to charge. Sleep is long in coming.

* * *

“Can I take a shower?”

“Of course,” Luci answers with a bemused frown. It’s a stupid question. Why shouldn't she be allowed to shower? Claire heads upstairs and leaves him to his breakfast making. 

He doesn't get what she's doing until she comes down dripping wet, wrapped in a towel. “May I brush my teeth?”

At first, the question confuses him for a second. Then he withholds an urge to groan. He doesn't slap her, but it's a near thing. ‘You want to sneeze or scratch your ass, you _ask_.’ Of course he hadn't meant that literally, but he _had_ said it. She's punishing him by using his own words against him. 

_Fucking let her. It's not like she'll have the patience to keep it up._

“Yes. And put on your makeup and clothes, then come down and let me do your hair.” Be proactive. Give the commands before she can ask. This childish game ends when one of them breaks. 

She goes upstairs again and he suddenly remembers utilising the same technique on his dad once. Dad had lost his temper after four days of this bullshit. He'd punched the wall repeatedly and with such force that the old mortar had cracked, a big chunk had fallen off to lay the stone bare. Dad had to wear a cast on his hand for weeks. Mother wanted Luci punished, but dad defended him. ‘I will not punish my son for obeying me, even when he does it to be irksome.’ Dad’s word was rock solid. It was the law nature bent to. It had a shitload of fine print, but if you found a loophole he'd honour it. Luci hates that his core values are still shaped by dad’s. He hates that he never gave in to dad, never came crawling back in defeat. He should have. He should have let dad win. Then dad would be alive today. He loved his dad too damned much, and that’s why it started to go awry between them. Because he’s an attention seeking whore, and dad didn’t pay him enough attention, so he sought it the negative way and it escalated from there.

The memories of his dad that plague him the most, are the best ones. It’s the ones of waking up late night as a kid, spooned by Mikey, often sucking Mikey’s thumb (why suck his own when he could have Mikey’s? Funny how that translated into their present relationship...), to discover dad sitting in their bed, leaned against the wall. He’d be barefoot, shirt sleeves rolled up, jacket removed but waistcoat still on, reading glasses on his nose, often mouthing a pen as he read files and documents. He’d spot Luci waking up and reach out to stroke his hair. ‘ _Go back to sleep, Luci boy._ ’ Luci wouldn’t fall asleep. He’d lie with his eyes closed trying to stay awake, just listening to dad shuffling papers, scribble something, and pet Luci’s head now and then. Just being happy about dad sitting there, working, instead of being away at the office.

Many of the lessons dad tried to teach them, were good memories too. Even the bad ones. Most of them were given at ages when they were far too young to comprehend the meaning. One of them randomly comes to mind. Luci doesn’t remember what sparked it. But it had to do with ownership and power.

_”Everything you own, son, owns you back. This is the backside of having as much power as we do.”_

_”Nu-uh. I decide over everything I own. It’s got no say in the matter. It_ can’t _own me,” Luci told his dad loftily and stuck his little nose in the air._

_His dad gave him a sad little smile and walked up to his bed. He picked up Luci’s favourite stuffed animal from the collection. A threadbare black panther, scarred by Luci’s carefree love. He looked at it, took a deep breath, and sighed heavily. “These toys, they’re all yours. Sasha here, he’s yours. You own him.”_

_”Yeah,” Luci agreed. “He’s my private ninjassassin. He kills all my enemies for me,” he explained._

_”But he doesn’t own you?”_

_”No.”_

_Dad walked to the window, opened it and looked over his shoulder pointedly. It rained outside and the wind coming in, was cold and muggy. Then dad turned and hurled the ninjassassin panther Sasha out of the window as hard and far as he could._

_” **SAAASH!** ” Luci yelled in horror, turned on his heel and ran out of the room, down the stairs, through the grand entrance, around the house as fast as he could. The cold rain spattered on his face and soaked the pyjama, gravel bit his bare feet. He fell and scraped his knee but got up and kept running, searching for Sasha. He found Sasha in a puddle of mud. It wasn’t the first time the panther had gotten wet, nor the first time it got muddy, but Luci cried anyway. He was cold, wet and dirty when he came back up into his room. _

_Dad was waiting, sitting on Luci’s bed with a big towel, a clean pyjama laid out on the bed. All the other stuffed toys were gone. “Take off your wet clothes and come here, son.” He did, and dad helped rub him dry and get dressed, then wrapped him in his embrace, rocking him soothingly in his lap._

_”You took my toys,” Luci accused, sniffling, hugging Sasha tightly to his chest while burrowing his head into dad’s chest, getting snot and tears all over his shirt. Unlike mom, dad never cared about things like that._

_”I’m trying to show you what I mean, Luci boy. If Sasha didn’t own you too, how could he make you run out in the cold rain, leaving everything else you own behind and risk getting a cold?”_

_”But I love him!”_

_”I’m not saying you chose wrong in going after him. I’m just saying you need to understand the first rule of power and ownership - if you claim something as your own, it’ll own you too, whether it’s a thing or a person. Make sure what you risk losing, is worth it, if you need to fight to keep something.”_

_When Luci woke up in the morning, the toys were all back. But from that day on Luci either hid his prized possessions, carried them with him, or fought viciously with anyone trying to steal something from him. It wasn’t the lesson dad was trying to teach._

Maybe Luci’s hatred for his dad stemmed from the point dad tried to make that evening. Luci worshipped his dad, but dad didn’t worship him back like he was supposed to (or so he’d thought). Luci wasn’t Sasha to him. (He’d found the panther with its silver eyes in a box in the estate after dad’s death, stored with all the siblings’ favourite toys. It’s now shelved in Luci’s upstairs office.) Dad wouldn’t drop everything and come running for him.

As always, thoughts about his dad drags him down. As if his mood wasn’t foul enough already due to the whole Dean/Cas situation. He sits down to eat and read the news. He misses Mavis. He can’t wait to have his family back by his side where he can keep an eye on them. 

Luci’s mood sours further when Claire gets back. He halts his movement, sandwich halfway to his mouth, and scowls. “For the love of―! Could that skirt _be_ any shorter?”

Claire stops and stares blankly at him for a beat. She turns and walks to the counter, grabs a knife from the knife rack, turns to face him and plants her feet firmly to stretch the fabric of the tight, black skirt she's wearing, then she stabs the skirt between her legs and cuts downward. She makes a cut to the side of the rip, puts the knife back, grabs the loose hanging fabric and pulls. It tears all the way around. 

Luci’s barraged by a mixture of feelings. First off, there’s a misplaced sort of amused pride at the sass. Then anger, since it’s directed at him. Also, fucking arousal. She should learn not to challenge him while wielding knives. It makes him want to play. “Why, yes. Yes, it could. How ‘bout that?” he comments sarcastically. “Fair enough. Get your ass over here so I can do your hair.”

The decimated black skirt barely covers her panties. He seethes silently while he makes a waterfall braid that keeps her hair out of her face. He ties it off with a rose-bun. “There. All done. Now eat and drink your breakfast,” he commands. There’s no way he’s going to allow her to leave home with the skirt like that. It’s hardly a skirt anymore. It was too short, to begin with. He wonders if she would wear it like that in public just to mess with him.

Claire sits down and does what she’s told. Not silently, though. No. He isn’t that lucky.

“You look like shit. Did you sleep at all tonight?”

“We can’t all be as pretty as you, princess,” Luci answers, pointedly looking at his newspaper.

“No. I mean, you’re usually hot. Now you look like someone put you through a grinder,” Claire argues.

_I’m hot, am I? Are you just saying that to manipulate me, or do you actually think I am?_

“How kind of you to notice,” Luci mutters.

“Did you stay up all night watching me sleep?” Claire asks with a smirk.

“I was, but then Dean skyped, and I got to watch something even prettier.”

Claire sniggers. “He’d stopped over at Cas’ again, _hmm_?” Her tone is mocking, telling him very clearly what she thinks of the reason Dean had for that.

“Claire, they're _not_ fucking.”

_They are. They are. They fucking **are**!_

“Uhuh,” she counters dryly and sucks on her Winnie the pooh straw. 

“Have you actually _seen_ them do anything?” Luci argues. Claire lived with Cas for a year before she came here a month and a half ago. She might have seen something. She might not be speculating. Maybe she’s laughing her ass off at Luci defending Dean when she’s _seen_ the act. Luci hates being made a fool of.

“No, but neither Cas nor Dean is stupid, are they? And they are pretty handsy with each other to be just friends. Plus, there's nothing wrong with my eyesight. I can see that Cas looks at Dean the same way he looks at Balt. Thirstier, even.”

He’s seen it too. She’s telling the truth. 

_Fuck, fuck, fuck, Dean is fucking cheating on me and my fucking hands are tied! What the fuck can I do about it without losing one of two people I love?_

“Why are we having this discussion again?”

“Because you’re losing sleep over it, and it ruins _my_ day.” She smirks again. “And, what was it you said? My _viewing pleasure_. You look like a racoon with those black shopping bags under your eyes.”

_Mikey has creams and stuff that would fix that. I could―_

_Manipulative little bitch. Now look who’s negging. Cunt._

_I’m not going to fix my looks to please you unless you put out, bitch._

_.........aaaand that doesn’t matter, Luci, because you’re a married man who needs to keep it in your pants. Right._

_Would she, though? Put out? Without coercion?_

_STOP thinking about it._

“Don’t like? Don’t look,” Luci snipes. Then he scrunches his face up. “You _like_ Dean.” It isn’t posed as a question, but Claire gets it.

“Yes, I do. So that makes it totally okay that he ignores his wedding vows and cheats on his husband,” Claire answers sarcastically.

There’s something fishy about it. Claire really likes Dean. You can’t see them together and not pick up on that. So why is she so eager to sell him out?

“Your dad cheated on your mom,” Luci hedges.

“Shut up. You’ve got no right talking about my parents. You didn’t _know_ them.” Every inch of Claire is suddenly defensive. He definitely stepped on a sore toe.

Why not stomp on it?

He gives her a faux-sympathetic smile. “Aww. He cheated, and they fought about it, but he didn’t stop. That’s why you turned into a rebellious little slut, wasn’t it? Bet your relationship to your parents was at an all-time low when they died, wasn’t it? It was, because no matter how much they argued, your mom defended him to you when you questioned why she put up with it.” He pulls his bottom lip thoughtfully, watching her trying to keep her face passive and failing at it. “Mmmh. That’s it. Your mom set a fine example, didn’t she? Showing that a woman should stand by her man and let him treat her like a doormat. Not that you wanted them to split up. No kids do. You wanted your dad to be faithful and for the problems to be resolved. But he kept cheating, didn’t he?”

“You know how much I hate you?”

Luci sniggers. “No, I don’t. Please, _do_ tell. Preferably in French. I’ll only get the gist of it. Don’t know many words in French. But it’s such a sexy language, and coming out of your mouth? Mm- _mmh_. Hot enough to jerk off to.”

Claire gets out of her chair and turns to leave the room.

“Nu-uh-uh. You didn’t _ask_ to leave the table,” Luci teases.

Claire sits back down and narrows her eyes at him. “ _Fine_. But you know what? You’re full of shit. You can talk all you want, but you’re doing it too. Dean’s cheating on you. You _know_ he is. And what do you do? You defend him. You just take it like a fucking loser and let him make a laughingstock out of you. I’d laugh at you too if it wasn’t so damn tragic. So don’t go bashing my mom for doing _exactly what you’re doing._ ”

Claire glares at him, jaw set stubbornly, and he meets her gaze with an equally cold and vehement stare. “You done?” Claire has never been closer to death at his hands than she is now. Teenagers run away from home all the time without getting found. They wouldn’t suspect him. Claire’s snuck out on all of them. It’s an established behaviour pattern. 

“Yes.”

“Go upstairs and change your clothes. Put on the grey, white, and black plaid skirt, the black rhinestone top, the red sneakers and the red jacket. Top it off with that broad belt hanging on your hips.”

“Yes, Sir.”

This time, he doesn’t stop her from leaving.

* * *


	10. Unexpectedly Calm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire continues to test Luci's patience. She reminds him too much of, well, himself.

“Shit. I forgot my bag upstairs.”

“I’ll go get it.” Luci goes back into the house and hurries upstairs. He goes into Claire’s room and grabs the handbag on the desk. He turns to leave but stops in his track, spotting something yellow in her trash can. Her bikini. And on closer inspection, he sees a piña colada lip smacker in the trash too. He all but purrs in contentment then makes a displeased grimace and leaves her room. Things would be so much better if he felt no affection for the little bitch. He doesn’t want this simmering, heated feeling from discovering that she’s done something that pleases him.

He goes back out, hands her the bag, locks the door and gets into the car. He starts the car, then waits. 

And waits.

“Fuck sake.” He opens the door, stands up and stares at her in question since she’s just standing beside the car door.

“May I get into the car?” she asks innocently.

He resists the urge to scream at her. “Yes.” He should get an award for his patience. He really should.

She gets in, buckles up on his command, and they’re finally on their way.

But not quietly. 

Oh, no. That would be too pleasant.

“For some kind of self-proclaimed fashion guru, you dress pretty awful,” Claire offers.

“Mh. I dress practically for the work I do. Plus, there’s always the need to blend in.” It hadn’t always been like that. Before he joined the army, he’d dressed in nothing but brand clothes from the latest collections. His wardrobe today is mostly practical, but name brand clothes had started creeping into his collection again.

“Yeah, but you claim to compete with Michael, and he dresses _really_ well.”

“I don’t have to compete with him anymore, now do I? I’ve already bagged myself the most gorgeous man ever born.”

“So did he,” Claire points out.

But she doesn’t know Michael is his too. He smirks to himself. “Fair enough.”

“Do you even own a suit?”

Luci chuckles. “More suits than I get an opportunity to wear.”

“Can I see you in one?”

He purses his lips in thought. Maybe make a peace offering? “Mmh. You start school on Monday, so we need to go shopping this weekend to get you clothes and gear. If you let me pick out what you wear, I’ll take you out to a nice restaurant and dress foppish enough to match you. How about it, darling?”

“I thought guys hated shopping.”

“It depends on whether you’re going to insist on getting clothes that make you look like a whore or not.”

“What do you want me to wear? A burqa?”

“Good idea, but no. So are we going out to eat, or not?”

“We are. Can we do some touristy stuff this weekend too?”

“Sure we can.” See? This is good. Cooperation. They _can_ get along.

* * *

Nope. He was wrong. They can't. 

He'd told Claire what she should start working with. But as soon as she was done she stalled instead of moving on to the next task. If he didn’t dictate what she was supposed to do, or wasn’t around to ask, she’d just idle. How the hell dad had put up with four fucking days of this bullshit eludes Luci. Not even all the compliments Claire has gotten on her hair and outfit today, serve to make his mood better.

He’s toting in new bags of dirt to a shelf, where Claire’s stacking pots nearby.

A male customer approaches Claire and starts talking. Luci turns to go get another load of bags. He catches some of the conversation when he passes them. “Only 17? Really? I thought you were older. You appear a lot more mature.” The man talking to Claire is around Luci’s age, maybe younger but not by much. He’s slim, light brown hair, brown eyes, glasses, and fucking freckles. Nice smile. Had Luci been single he’d gone for it. A sympathetic smile like that paired with freckles? Absolutely. Freckles or not, the guy isn’t even in the vicinity of being good looking enough to be compared to Dean. 

And he’s flirting with Luci’s woman.

Now, you see, Claire might need that. She might need some attention from good-looking men, not just jerks like Luci. The guy doesn’t give out the vibes of a predator. (Luci’s definition of a predator, not the much milder stamp society put on grown men wanting to fuck teenage girls―teenage girls that the same society peddle like the ultimate definition of sex appeal.) This guy wants Claire, no doubt, but he’d be wow-ed by it if she gave him the time of day, plus he’s wearing a wedding ring. There’s no underlying malice. So Luci stows his violent impulses and goes to fetch another load of bags. He allows the flirting as a little present to Claire. Maybe it’ll cheer her up and make her stop with the bullshit?

Annie catches him in the storage room. “Nick! Joan messed up an order yesterday. We have an order she thought was supposed to be delivered tomorrow, but they ordered it for today? We need five light purple and pink arrangements and they need to be delivered to Lindell street 14 within two hours or we’re screwed.”

“Help me create the arrangements and I’ll deliver.”

Said and done. Annie and he get going making five very elaborate and beautiful (and expensive) pastel coloured arrangements, Luci takes them to one of the company vans and makes the delivery run. When he comes back, Claire’s nowhere to be found. It takes him fifteen fucking minutes to track her down out back. She’s pressed up against the wall, her arms wound around the freckled man’s back, one of his hands under her skirt cupping her ass, the other inside her top around her back. They’re kissing and she’s pressing herself against him, making needy noises.

Luci doesn’t think.

He grabs the guy by the hair and yanks him off, headbutting him on the temple. The guy staggers and Luci grabs his wrist and yanks again, making his forehead connect with the guy’s nose this time. The guy cries out and falls to his knees, prevented from falling over by Luci’s grip on his wrist. Luci breaks three of the fingers on the hand he’s holding in quick succession, feeling nothing but cold hatred at the mewls of pain from the other man. He grabs the man by his collar and pulls him up onto his feet. The guy sways, eyes tearing up from the broken nose, satisfying blood on his face. “Statutory. Rape. I’ll count to ten. If you’re not off my property by then, you won’t be able to go anywhere ever again,” Luci informs him calmly, coldly, heart pounding in his chest, adrenaline rushing. “Ten…” He lets go. “Nine… Eight…” The guy staggers and runs towards the parking lot bent forward holding his nose. Luci keeps counting, fighting the urge to follow like a hunting dog would follow a running hare. War zones are easier. There’s no law but nature’s. In places where the most base instincts rule, he’s a king. Here, he needs to think about his actions, constantly hold himself back. The guy gets into a red Toyota Camry. Luci memorizes the license plate number before the guy starts the car and drives off with wheels screeching.

Luci turns towards Claire, who’s standing with her back still pressed against wall, wide-eyed and covering her mouth with both hands. “Claire Williams, I swea―“

“ _Novak_ ,” she corrects him.

Luci’s jaws snap shut, muscles twitching in his face. He takes a deep breath and lets it out again slowly. “Claire _Novak_. Your silly game is over since _you_ broke the rules. You did not ask for permission to whore yourself out―”

“Now who’s interfering with whose sex life?” she sasses, dropping her hands. Her eyes hold more defiance than fear. He both loves her and hates her for it.

He steps up close and puts his hands on the wall on either side of her on the wall. “A. You’re currently working, which makes this unacceptable. B. You’re not allowed to _have_ a sex life with anyone but yourself unless I say so. Is that clear?”

Claire doesn’t answer. Her jaw sets stubbornly. Brave. Stupid. Gorgeous.

He leans forward and sniffs her neck, then makes a grimace. “Now, we’re going home and you’re going straight to the shower. I can smell his aftershave on you. Come on.”

He really, _really_ deserves an award for his calm.

He calls an employee who has a couple of days off and convinces them to come straight in to take the rest of his shift and to work tomorrow too, then informs Annie that they’re going.

Claire follows him like a silent shadow. She doesn’t speak until they’re in the car.

“You’re gonna get in trouble. He’ll press charges.”

“No, he won’t. He’s a regular Joe who’s married and was caught molesting a minor. He’ll count himself lucky to get away, make up a lie about having been jumped by some scumbag that looks nothing like me and get sympathy from his wife. He won’t be back here if he can avoid it.”

She looks at him. “Married?”

“You didn’t spot the wedding ring?”

“Didn’t think of it.”

“Mmh. You need to pay attention to details.”

“You broke his fingers.”

“Mhm.”

“And his nose.”

“I left him able to walk and drive. He should be grateful. He shouldn’t have touched what belongs to―” Luci clears his throat. “What doesn’t belong to him,” he corrects.

“What are you going to do to me?”

“Nothing, if I can help it. Although, you’re making it increasingly hard, darling. If you keep pushing I will have no choice but to hit you. You’d deserve it.”

Claire snorts and shakes her head disbelievingly, looking out of the window.

“You know, you can still go back to France. Just say the word and I’ll buy you a ticket.”

“You really don’t want me here…” There’s no mistaking the bitterness in her voice.

“Why should I? You don’t give a shit about us. You’re counting down the days until you turn 18 and can do whatever you fucking want. I bet you’ll apply for a name change on your fucking birthday, changing it back to Novak to show exactly how little you want to be part of our family. You don’t care that we welcomed you with open arms and gave you a safe environment when your previous life went up in smoke. You don't care that all of us have had to readjust our lives to fit around yours. You get access to your inheritance when you turn 18 and then you'll fuck off to self-destruct, giving us the finger. You don't give a shit, so why should I?”

“I never asked for this.”

“ _NEITHER DID I!_ ” Luci roars making Claire flinch and press herself to the car door, staring at him with wide, wary eyes. He clenches his jaw and goes on, voice tightly controlled. “It’s understood that you’re not pleased with the current arrangement. I’m not happy about that. Believe it or not, but I like you, Claire. I like your fire, your intelligence, as well as your looks. I think we could have had a lot of fun if you’d resign yourself to put off your destructive behaviour until you turn 18. You make a shitload of dumb decisions, but it doesn’t mean I can’t tell you’re smart. It makes me want to teach you stuff. But I have to remind myself that you’re not part of the family. That you don’t _want_ to be part of the family. And every time I have to remind myself of that, you come one step closer to become fish food in the Atlantic Ocean. This isn’t a fucking game, Claire. I keep having to rein my temper in with you and I don’t fucking like it. Loyalty is everything in the Williams family. And you’re showing us _none_.”

“Dean and Cas aren’t loyal.”

“You know what? They are. Even if they’re humping like little bunnies,” (That’s an image Luci could have done without right now), “They’re still keeping their loyalty towards the family, doing nothing to endanger what we have. A little infighting is normal, but when it counts, we’ll _always_ join ranks. _Always_.”

“So if I was family, you’d―” Claire cuts off what she was about to say and looks out the window.

“I would what?”

“Nothing.”

Luci grits his teeth. The hell with it. Better tell her how things really are. “Fair enough. Look, Claire. You’re fucking _mine_. As long as you live under my roof, my rules apply. Right now you’re like a dog with a choke-chain, pulling at its leash. You learn to heel, those rules won’t be constricting. I’ll let you breathe again.”

“Dean and Michael―”

“―Can do nothing. I own you now. Until you turn 18 and fuck off, or until the day you go back to France and let Cas own you instead. As long as you live in my house, you’re mine.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means,” Luci explains patiently for what feels like the millionth time, “you’re going to work when you are at work, do your best in school, don’t sleep with any guy I haven’t given a green light to, and don’t leave home without permission. It also means that if you want to get high or drunk, or do anything risky or stupid, you ask me. If I say no, it’s no. If I say yes, we do it together so I can ensure that nobody takes advantage of you or harms you.”

“Only you?”

“Of course not! Don’t be daft. You’re not waiving your rights to consent just because I’m staking a claim. Otherwise, we’d been practising self-defense since the day in the gym. I want you to be able to defend yourself against scumbags like myself but I can’t train you against your will. I’m not going to cop a feel without you wanting me to, if you think that.” Well. He might have done that already. If he’s been reading her wrong, he has. “Have I ever done that, Claire? Be honest, because I don’t think I have. So if I’m wrong, tell me.”

Claire shakes her head without as much as a second of hesitation. “No, you haven’t. You always stop when it’s getting interesting. It’s really frustrating.” 

_How about that? I didn’t need to get confirmed that you feel that way, darling._

It’s not like he hasn’t seen her appreciative looks. And she had called him hot. But that’s one thing. They’re always at war. He’d done a ton of shitty things towards her, stomping all over her right to privacy, and whatever attraction she might have felt should have lessened into nothing but simmering resentment. 

“What do you expect? You do nothing but provoke me. My patience is a limited resource. It’s like you _want_ me to hurt you. I’m warning you, Claire. Your next transgression, I’m going to give you a fucking spanking. You hear that? It’s not an empty threat this time.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever,” she mutters and looks out the window again.

“You’re unexpectedly calm for someone who’ve just see me mess up a suitor,” Luci points out. She hadn’t freaked out even half as much as she ought to. Or at all, for that matter.

“You moved so fast…”

“Mhm?”

“Those headbutts came like rapid fire. He didn’t stand a chance to figure out what was going on…”

“That’s the point.”

“And you looked like you’d grown, like, a decimeter or something. Your face, _Mon Dieu_ … I thought you were going to kill him. The sound of his fingers breaking was absolutely gross. But you just… just…”

“Mhm to all of that. So why stay so calm when I was in that state, Claire?” He knows he’s dangerous and has much less impulse control when in fighting mode. She saw his kill face and should rightly be curled into a little ball crying in fright. But no.

“Let’s just say you didn’t look like a raccoon anymore.”

Luci throws a glance at Claire to find her looking at him with lips quirked in the corners and heated awe in her eyes. Now _that_ speaks directly to his nether region. “It’s a shame you don’t want to be a Williams, darling, because that kind of thinking is what keeps my family together,” he tells her, inwardly preening, and lets the conversation die down. He did _not_ need to know that the danger in him is a turn on for her. She doesn’t know half of it. Unlike Dean and Michael, he doubts she could handle it…

* * *


	11. A Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luci and Claire are getting along for once. It leads to a talk that makes Luci understand Claire a lot better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. I don't translate the French because Luci doesn't understand it, but it's all colourful insults and swearwords. I leave it up to you to figure it out yourself. :)

* * *

They’re both out in the garden, Luci working on his laptop, going through the surveillance footage of his mark (closing the laptop any time Claire gets close enough to see what he’s doing.), while Claire lies on the grass in front of him, reading a book. Or she’s trying to read. The little minx is restless. She keeps putting the book down to get up and wander around to look at the flowers, come to sit beside him, go inside, come out again and lay down to read. She’s showered, and asked him to do her hair again. Openly admitting that she likes it. So now she’s got three braids along her scalp on both sides but the rest of the hair free, just to keep it out of her face. She’s got a cute, short skirt on and a spaghetti strap top. She looks great, and he’s not at all averse to her restless company.

Once again she gets up and goes to sit beside him on the porch stairs. He shuts the laptop and she rolls her eyes. “Are you watching porn, or what?”

“On the laptop, or sitting beside me?” he jokes and gives her a wink.

“Har Har. On the laptop, since it’s so secret.”

“I’m working, darling. Why would I hide porn?”

She gives him a dubious look. “What are you working on?”

“The flower delivery Dean assigned to me,” he answers with an amicable smile.

“The one that isn’t a flower delivery?”

“Mhm.”

“So what is it?”

“Nothing that concerns anyone who hasn’t got the Williams family’s best interest at heart.” He kisses his finger and bops her nose, then takes a swig on his beer.

She makes a grabby gesture towards the beer and he hands it over. “So are you a spy like Dean?”

“Nu-uh. Not even close.” He watches her wrap her pink lips around the bottle and drink. As soon as she lowers it he takes it from her and sniffs the bottle, then rubs his lips against it to get a taste. She watches in bemusement. “What flavour is it? I can’t pinpoint it. The beer masks what it’s supposed to be.”

“You’re talking about my lip smackers again? Why are you so obsessed with it?”

“Because it keeps changing. And I’m not obsessed, merely curious.” _Curious what your moans would taste like_ , he doesn’t say.

Claire scrapes her own bottom lip with a finger and reaches out to rub it against Luci’s lip. He barely refrains from sucking her finger into his mouth. She retracts her finger with a playful look. “Guess now.”

He licks his lip and narrows his eyes in speculation. “Grape?”

“Grape jelly. You don’t like it?”

“It’s fine enough. Not my first choice to go with beer, though. Did you have anything special in mind when you wanted to do something touristy?” he changes the subject.

“No. Statue of liberty? I don’t know. I’ve been here for almost two months and nobody’s had any time to play tourist with me.”

“Fair enough. I’ll play with you tomorrow. But right now I really need to work. So if you sit in front of me I can work and speak with you at the same time.” Claire scoots down to sit cross-legged in front of him, facing him. He opens the laptop again. “Thank you, darling.”

“So what are you doing? I mean, like are you reading emails, or doing taxes, or what?”

“I guess I can tell you that. I’m going through surveillance footage from several cameras to look for anomalies. I’m fast forwarding most of it, marking up minutes I need to watch more closely or see if I need to listen to the audio. I can’t listen to the audio when you’re around, though.”

“Are you involved in the security of the Williams businesses?”

“Mhm,” Luci agrees. It’s not exactly true. But it’s not a complete lie either. “I’m a Williams after all. I dabble a bit. It’s hard not to when I live with Dean and Mikey.”

“I guess…”

“Did your dad like working for Cas?”

Claire pulls at the grass between her legs. “He loved it. He said he liked the acting part, but I think he also enjoyed the power he commanded. Like, he got to live a jet-set life but without all the responsibility.”

“He had to do the boring parts, from my understanding.”

“He didn’t think it was boring. He got to go to grand openings, parties and galas. All he had to do was act polite and aloof and get spoiled rotten.”

“It's a shame he couldn't bring you to work. I bet he would have wanted to share that with you.” Luci looks at his work while they talk. This is nice. He enjoys her company when they don't fight. 

“I doubt that. Mom and I wanted him to quit but he refused.”

“Why? From what I hear Cas paid really well and your dad only had to work a couple of days a month, more or less. Didn’t he spend a lot of time at home with you?”

Claire nods at the grass, mouth going to a sad, determined line.

“Didn’t you like having him at home that much?”

Another nod avoiding eye contact.

“What was it then? Were you afraid he was going to get shot or hurt? Cas has enemies. He doesn’t employ body doubles for security reasons, though, but the risks are still there.”

Claire shakes her head. “No. I didn’t realise the dangers of his job until I moved in with Cas. I only knew his job as a body double was top secret. We told people he was an unemployed actor and that he was engaged in church projects when he went away. I wasn’t supposed to know about his job at all, but I overheard mom and dad talking one night. I asked about it and they made me promise not to tell anyone.”

“You didn’t?”

“No.”

“Not even your best friend?”

Claire looks up and shakes her head. “No.”

Luci never considered the lives of the body doubles. Of course, it had to remain a secret that they worked as such. There were no ‘bring your kid to work’ days, no career days at school where the kid got to brag about their parent, no office parties where the family were welcome. Any time Novak worked, he had to _be_ Cas. The fewer people that knew about Cas’ body doubles, the better. “That’s hard. Especially for a child. I always had my brothers, Mikey specifically, to talk to. There’s almost nothing I wouldn’t, haven’t, told him.”

“Yeah, but, it kinda brought me closer to dad? We talked about it. And he told me about all the fantastic things he got to experience at work. I thought it was really cool, until…” She looks down and pulls at the grass again. “Cas is gay, right? Like, completely, utterly, would never sleep with a woman-gay?”

“That sums it up, yes.”

“Thought so.” Claire gets up and collects her book. “I’m going to my room,” she informs him and leaves.

Luci tilts his head and scrunches his face up in thought as he follows her with his gaze. She didn’t appear to be homophobic whatsoever, so why would she look so bothered by Cas being gay? ...Unless her dad had cheated while at work. Which makes no sense either, because Cas wouldn’t approve of Novak sleeping around while in the guise of Castiel. Castiel’s public persona― 

Luci’s mind stutters as understanding dawns.

Castiel’s public persona has been in a decades-long, devoted relationship with one woman. Who’s to say that he didn’t let his body doubles take her with them to the public affairs? In fact, it makes sense. Luci hadn’t known Cas had body doubles until a couple of years ago. But he might have found James Novak soon after he moved to France. And Luci had seen Cas be _quite_ loving towards his longtime fiancee in public settings. Luci had just figured Cas was a great actor. He _is_. But maybe not that great? Maybe he left the more handsy parts to his doppelgangers?

Luci shuts down the surveillance program and opens Google, then googles ‘Castiel Williams and Meg Masters’. He looks at the image results. There are a lot of pictures of them holding hands or having their arms around each other, but further down amongst the results he finds some pictures where they look at each other like they’re truly in love, and one picture of a quite passionate kiss that, if you zoom in, you can see tongue is involved. Who’s to say that isn’t Novak? It doesn’t matter if he’s just acting, playing a role, it would put a strain on a relationship. Novak was living a double life. Come to think of it, Meg might have been fucking him. Meg is the master of her own sexuality. Cas wouldn’t sleep with her for obvious reasons, but she slept around. Not with just anyone, but with people she deemed suitable. Luci hadn’t slept with her solely because he was already married to Dean when opportunity and offer came. Michael, on the other hand, had taken her up on the offer. Dean thankfully didn’t know about it. It had happened while they all lived with Cas, before Dean had heard about the office BJ. Mikey still wasn’t certain he was allowed to pursue Dean so nights he didn’t come to stare at them sleeping, he’d been banging Meg. Luci doesn’t blame him. Poor guy needed to blow some steam after being imprisoned for so long.

None of that was of any consequence. The important thing is that Claire believed her dad and Meg had an affair. Her mom had thought so too. And if Novak did have a real affair with Meg, Cas would have approved, caring nothing for how it affected Novak’s home life since it would serve his own interests.

Luci takes the laptop and goes inside. He leaves it in his office and goes to knock on Claire’s door. “Darling, can I come in?”

It’s quiet for a moment and he almost changes his mind about having the talk. But then, “ _It’s unlocked!_ ”

He opens the door and finds Claire curled up on the bed, hugging an old doll to her chest. Thankfully, she isn’t crying. He hates when people he cares for cry unless he’s making them. It makes him feel powerless. He points on a spot on the bed beside her. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

“It’s your house.”

He doesn’t move from his place by the door, just looks at her softly and hums a non-committal way. If she doesn’t want to talk, he won’t force her. He, if anyone, should know that opening up to someone is something you can’t force. After a moment she seems to realise he isn’t going to come in uninvited this time and scoots a bit to the side, giving him a permissive look.

Luci comes inside and sits down. “You know Meg’s just a beard to cover for Cas’ sexuality. Your dad would have had to pretend the same way movie stars pretends when they make a movie. The kisses they may have shared are no indication of an actual affair,” he says gently, trying to look sympathetic. 

“That was always his argument. I used to believe him. I _wanted_ to believe him. Mom didn’t like it and wanted him to quit his job. He’d argue that we owed everything to Cas. Dad spent, like, 80% of his time with us. Mom didn’t have to work. She worked because she wanted to. We had a nice house, nice car, could go on vacations. He said she was being childish and unreasonably jealous since he so rarely _had_ to give Meg a kiss or two, and his job was done without her as often as not.”

Luci hums and reaches out to pet Claire’s hair soothingly. He halts his hand just before he touches her, thinking it might be unwelcome, but she moves her head just a tad bit closer in unspoken permission. “If you believed him, why would you want him to quit? I would have given my right arm to have dad at home 80%, giving us his time instead of working.” Claire can’t even begin to fathom how hard that confession is to make, for him.

“I, uh… Okay, like, I was twelve when I got my period? So… I was in school when my first period came. I knew what it was and all. It was still embarrassing. It felt like I peed myself right there in class. I was wearing black pants, though, so it didn’t show. Had to ask to go to the nurse to get pads. But then the cramps started and got really bad before lunch so I went home early...” To Luci it feels like Claire’s stalling. He can see where this is going and her period is completely irrelevant to what she’s about to tell him. But sometimes you need to include details like this to muster up the courage.

“Your dad wasn’t alone when you came home,” Luci hedges.

Claire shakes her head. “Mom and dad were very restrictive with their PDA in front of me. A peck on the cheek, holding hands, an arm around the shoulder while watching TV… stuff like that. I’d never even seen them kiss properly. So I was shocked when I came home and found dad going at it with _her_ on the couch.” The hateful way Claire spits out the word ‘her’ makes it clear she isn’t talking about her mom.

“Meg?”

“Mhm. They were like animals. I was so stunned I froze to the spot and stared. Like, I know that’s not what you’re supposed to do when you find your parents having sex, with each other or anyone else. It’s gross. But up until then I hadn’t even been able to imagine dad actually doing it. And there he was and he was… _Merde_. Not only was he rough and wild, he talked dirty like you wouldn’t believe! Called Meg dirty stuff that would have appalled mom, and Meg loved it. Things you’re not supposed to like to be called as a woman.”

_Interesting choice of words. ‘Not supposed to as a woman’?_ “Things like slut and whore?”

“Mhm.”

“Each to their own, Claire. Meg owns her sexuality. She won’t let anyone shame her for what she likes. Neither should you.” Luci makes a face. “I apologise. Now’s not the time or place to give you a lecture in female liberation, especially not with Meg as an example, during the circumstances.”

“No, please, do. I really like to hear _you_ talk about female liberation,” Claire says sarcastically.

“I’m sorry.” He means it, fingers idling with Claire’s golden locks.

“It’s okay. It’s just… it messed me up to see that. I knew about sex in a much more theoretical way. But seeing them… anyway. It took a while before dad spotted me. And when he did, I ran away. He found me a couple of hours later. I was crying like a baby. By then he’d changed clothes. And he said Castiel had called him while he was away working. Dad said that he’d let Cas and Meg use our house. That I hadn’t seen _him_. He showed me a clip on the news, of Cas on some large meeting with ministers present, and he said it was him, not Cas on TV. That even rich people needed some change of scenery to spice up their love life. He apologised for doing Cas that favour without telling us, since he knew mom wouldn’t allow it.”

“You believed him.”

“I wanted to believe him. I couldn’t believe he’d do that to us, so I bought it. Didn’t even tell mom since she’d be angry… dad had this photo of him and Cas side by side, dressed in the same clothes, making the same expression, and even today, I can’t tell who is whom, looking at them. I’m not a dumb bitch, okay? Dad’s completely different than Cas. Dad was goofy―“

“Cas is goofy.”

“No. Cas is _weird_. Dad was energetic and dopey in a way Cas never is. The man fucking Meg in our living room was completely different than I’d ever seen dad, so―”

“It was an easy lie to believe, seeing the man, not the father. Then you moved in with Cas, realised he’s as gay as they come and that he wouldn’t come anywhere near Meg with his dick, no matter how good friends they are.”

Claire’s mournful silence is answer enough.

“Mhm. So not only do you have to deal with your dead dad’s look-alike, but you’ve been living under the same roof as your dad’s mistress for a year. That’s harsh. No wonder you’re giving Cas so much lip.”

“I _hate_ him. He ruined our lives. If it wasn’t for him, dad would never have cheated. Mom and dad wouldn’t have fought so much.”

“No. I don’t believe that. It is possible that your dad was madly in love with Meg. Somehow, I doubt it. It’s far more likely that your parents were having trouble in their relationship. Maybe your mom no longer put out, so he got his needs filled where he could. If it hadn’t been Meg, it would have been someone else. It’s not uncommon for married men to take a mistress. They’re unhappy in their romantic relationship, but happy as a family, too in love with their children to leave. Judging by how much time he spent with you at home, I think that’s the most likely reason.”

“So why is Dean cheating on you? I’ve never seen so much porn level PDA as between you two, or Dean and Michael. You’re so tight and so affectionate. There’s no reason for him to fuck others.”

“He’s not cheating on me, Claire.”

“You think he is,” she challenges.

_I know he is._

“Alright. Good talk. I’m leaving now.”

Luci gets up and heads for the door, but stops at the threshold and turns back, holding the door handle. “If you’d told your mom, the risk of them getting divorced would have been the most likely outcome. Even if he’d have stopped working for Cas, the damage to the trust would have been next to irreparable. Knowing he lied to you that day, would you have wanted them to separate? Would you have told your mom?”

Claire is quiet for a beat. “No…”

Luci hums thoughtfully and closes the door after himself when he leaves.

* * *


	12. Sticking by your word

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A threat that isn't a promise, isn't a threat. Luci reminds himself of that when Claire once again tests his patience.

He keeps thinking about it while he works in his office. About what went on in Claire’s head when she saw Novak and Meg together. No, afterwards, when she no longer believed it was her dad, just a man who looked like him. Cas’ description of the Novak family had been ‘pious and proper’. So if Claire up until that moment had gotten a ‘pious and proper’ upbringing, this moment would have been pivotal for her on many levels. Her trust in her father would have been broken, even when she’d chosen to believe him. The doubt would always nag. It might have brought a sexual awakening as well. Mikey had said Meg is vocal and demanding in bed. She’d be saying stuff like ‘Fuck my hungry slut-pussy ‘til I can’t walk. Hander, you bitch, work for it. Ram that cock―’ 

Aaaand he needn’t specify or he’d think himself to a boner. Bottom line is, Mikey isn’t too keen on calling women names while having sex with them. He and Meg weren’t perfectly matched in bed. But if Novak and she were, Claire would have gotten her innocence blasted bazooka style.

No matter how Luci twists and turns it in his head, he can’t imagine what this traumatic experience would have led Claire to think, or how she’d felt (add cramps and her first bleeding to make it extra special). His experience of walking in on his parents having sex, like every child is bound to do that at some point, wasn’t traumatic at all. It had turned him on. _They_ hadn’t, but what dad had done to their mother had, which only confirms how sick of an individual Luci really is. He too had stopped to stare. Dad had noticed and looked up. ‘Can I help you, son?’ he’d said, calm as a rock. Mom had yelped and squirmed under him, rushing to cover up and drawn breath to scream at Luci. But dad had grabbed her wrists with one hand, pushed her down with that hand and covered her mouth with the other, pinning her down firmly before looking at Luci again. ‘Luci, I’m making love to your mother. This is not something a child is meant to watch their parents do. Do you have an emergency I need to see to? If not, would you be so kind to leave and close the door. I’ll come to you when we’re done.’

Of course Luci had backed out right away with a deferential ‘Yes, father.’ What else would you do? He hadn’t had much of a notion about sex before that, but he’d been turned on in a bewildered, naive sort of way anyway. It’s not like he hadn’t had a boner before. That thing popped up like a Jack-in-the-box whenever it damned well pleased. But it was the sheer dominance of quenching mom’s protests that triggered that excited feeling that spread into Luci’s nethers. 

Dad wasn’t like that towards their mom regularly. He’d humour her, be fairly doting and accommodating. It would be wrong to call him submissive. Dad was a lot of things, but never submissive.

But that ruthless, careless dominance, might have held the roots of Luci’s sexuality. 

This was long before sex turned into something that made sense, back before teenage hormones turned a curiosity into a need. When they were just kids making sense of both their bodies and the world in general. 

Come to think of it, he has some vague memory of telling Mikey about it, and playing mom and dad with Mikey, incorporating this but with clothes on. But the whole thing was so innocent that it doesn’t register as incest, or truly as sexual at all. In fact, now that he thinks about it, he thinks he can remember Nana catching them at it and telling them that brothers aren’t supposed to play like that. 

“I’m getting too easily sidetracked these days,” he mutters to himself.

Currently he feels good about Claire. He wants to help her. Be the good guy for a change. He gets why she doesn’t want to go back to Cas. How is she going to get a chance to make sense of all her complicated feelings and mourn properly while living with her dad’s mistress, and his look-alike? The way he sees it, it’d only traumatise her further.

_If she could just avoid being a stupid bitch, things will work out just fabulously._

_How much do you want to bet she’ll be pulling something stupid within days?_

_I’ll give her less than 24 hours before she’s pulling my tail again._

With that annoying thought he puts on his headphones to go through the audio of the select bits of surveillance footage to make sure his plans for the next hit won’t have any unforeseen complications.

* * *

Normally, Luci really enjoys being right about things. Claire being difficult so soon when they’d gotten along so well, isn’t one of them.

He’s shutting down his work related tabs and opens up the two camera feeds of her room. She isn’t there. Nothing to get his panties in a twist over. She’s free to roam the house as she pleases. But just to be sure, he opens up the security program to check if any windows or doors has been opened. The kitchen door is marked in glaring red, indicating it’s open. “You better just be out smoking, young lady,” he mutters, shuts off his computer and leaves his office.

He goes to the kitchen and through the door. Claire isn’t by her usual smoking spot.

He walks towards the corner of the house, meaning to make a round around the garden. He doesn’t have to. He catches a familiar scent and sniffs.

_Oh, she’s out smoking alright. The little bitch._

At least, this time he’d anticipated it, and hadn’t turned complacent by getting along. He peeks around the corner, careful to not be spotted first. She’s keeping watch, but at the other door, making her back turned towards him. Since she isn’t stupid, he gives her the benefit of thinking she’s watching both directions, and he’s lucky that she’s looking the wrong direction right now. He moves, anger rising when the wind carries the strong scent of weed his way.

A couple of long strides and he’s by her, snatching the joint out of her hand while giving her a light slap on the cheek at the same time.

She shrieks and drops a bag of weed. He puts the joint between his lips, grabs her by the throat to prevent escape, and dips down to pick up the bag. He’s not squeezing to cut off her air or blood flow, just holding her around the throat so she won’t bolt. Her eyes are round with fear, and instead of fighting she holds her hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“Claire Novak. Why are you so eager to test me? I told you what would happen the next time you step out of line. And this…” he holds up the bag of weed before her eyes, “...is how you react? Where did you get this?” he demands and sucks an inhale on the joint pinched between his lips. It’s good stuff. Potent. 

She pinches her lips shut.

_You’re so lovely in your dumb defiance. I wonder if dad admired that quality in me? He did. Reluctantly. I remember that._

He pockets the bag of weed and slaps her again. By his standards, it’s a loving pat. It won’t hurt much, just jolt her into awareness that physical violence is a real threat this time. “Don’t play games with me, Claire. Talk. Where did you get the weed?”

“Christian.”

“ _Who?_ ”

“T-the guy from today, that you―”

“The guy you were gonna fuck?”

“I wasn’t going to―” Another light slap shuts Claire up. He isn’t hitting hard at all. Doesn’t even leave a red mark.

_That’s about to change. I can’t_ not _act on my threats now, or Claire won’t trust a single word coming out of my mouth in the future._

He can feel the mellowing effect of the drug. Funnily enough, Claire doesn’t seem affected at all. Maybe it’s the fear?

He switches his grip on her, grabbing her by a wrist. “Come on.”

He starts hauling her the way he came from. “What are you going to do to me?” Claire asks with a slight quaver to her voice.

He stops and turns back towards her. “What I said I’d do, darling. I’m going to spank you. It’s going to be painful and I’m going to enjoy it.” It’s satisfying to see her nervous swallow. He smirks and drags her along to the kitchen door, taking another deep inhale of the weed. He kills the joint with thumb and forefinger and puts it on the kitchen counter, intending to revisit it later, then drags her to the adjacent room by the stairs. It’s one of the most pointless rooms in the house if you ask him, yet one of the most used by him. It’s got the fireplace to burn evidence, a couch, a liquor cabinet, potted plants, some book shelves, and a big open space where Mikey had first fucked him. In here there are no windows, only art on the walls, and here’s where Luci likes to drink when he’s alone, blasting music, dancing or playing air guitar, moving around while thinking (or trying not to).

He sits down in the middle of the couch and pulls Claire down in his lap. “Okay, darling. This is how it’s going to go. I’m going to spank you until I’m satisfied. It’ll hurt. I won’t hold back. If you struggle, I’ll twist your arm back and restrain your legs and it’ll hurt _more_. You’ll make it easier on yourself if you accept your punishment and try to keep still. Bite the pillow if you need to. Cry or scream if you have to. Nobody’s going to hear you and I won’t shame you for it. And be aware I’m going to enjoy this _immensely_.”

Her eyes are so big and apprehensive, lips slightly parted. He wonders if she’s ever been punished like this before? If she’s ever had to endure violence in any form? He bites his lip, heart speeding up in thrill at the prospect of what he’s about to do. She bites her lip in response and he feels that tickling feeling by the base of his spine that means his dick will soon start to fill. “Ready?” he asks, then manhandles her to lie over his lap without waiting for an answer.

Fuck, she’s got such a pretty little ass. She seems so delicate and frail in comparison to Dean who usually gets his loving violence. She hugs a pillow and looks over her shoulder with those big blue eyes, scared, and something else… He smiles and brings his hand up, palm flat. He halts his movement with his hand up, to see if she’ll try to get away, but she doesn’t. She lies still, waiting. His dick makes a little twitch against her belly. 

He brings his hand down as hard as he can.

Claire shrieks, whole body jolting. She turns her head into the pillow.

Luci’s hand stings from the hit. He pulls his hand up and brings it down again. And again. And again. Claire jolts with each hit, pained noises muffled by the pillow. Her little skirt bounces every time he brings his hand up.

His heart is hammering in excitement. He’s longed to do this. He can practically feel the endorphins course through his bloodstream.

He rests his hand on her ass cheek, looking at her head. She turns her head to look at him. Her eyes are wet, but she isn’t crying. Not yet. She will be. He smiles at her. “Look at you. You’re gorgeous. You’re doing great, sweetheart, but we’re just getting started. Hang in there.”

He hits her again, keeping eye contact. She tries to keep looking at him. He can see the pain in her eyes. If his erection hadn’t filled to poke her in the belly already, it does so now. Three more hits and three more bitten back yelps and body jolts then Claire closes her eyes and turns her head back into the pillow just as the first tear leaves her eye to drag a line through her makeup.

“Fuck, you’re perfect like this. Hold still, baby.”

He spanks her again and again and again, changing from one ass cheek to another, his chest tight in the best of ways. Dean hates this. Hates to have to hold still. Hates to force himself to comply. Luci loves the fight in Dean. Two equals battling for power until Luci (of course) wins. But how can you not love when someone exerts so much self-discipline like Claire’s doing now, all to please you? To let you do things to them that go against natural programming? He fucking revels in the power. This isn’t mindless obedience. This requires some heavy thought control. Especially when you know what’s waiting. The first hit is easy. You’re shocked. But then with every pause, you get to think. The more often you experience it, the harder it can be. You know what’s coming. And it’s harder to remain still and take it.

_”This is the final warning, Luci. If you don’t put your suit on and get yourself down to the car right now, I_ will _hit you. The choice is yours.” Dad’s jaw is set in a stubborn line. Eyes cold. This isn’t the unbridled rage of the bad year. It’s the determined, tightly controlled, disappointed anger Luci’s used to seeing._

_”Fuck you.” Luci doesn’t budge. He sticks his chin up defiantly, arms crossed over his chest. They’re almost at the same height these days. He doubts he’ll ever be as tall as his dad. But out of all siblings, Luci’s the closest in height and build. Slimmer, less muscular, lighter. Youth has its disadvantages. One day he hopes he will be as imposing as dad. Dad fits an insane amount of training in his busy schedule. Running in the mornings―they run together, sometimes, Luci, Mikey, and Cas all enjoy running―working out in the gym at home or at the office, riding, and boxing during the evenings. Dad’s addicted to physical exertion, treating it like Luci treats drugs―an escape and a kick. It’s the boxing, though, that has Luci struggling not to shirk away when dad steps closer. He can’t let dad see the fear._

_”Fair enough, son. I wish you’d step up and take responsibility like your brothers. I sincerely don’t want to do this. Head or stomach?”_

_Luci widens his stance and shifts to grasp his wrist behind his back. “Head,” he answers curtly. Never back down. Never take the coward’s route. If he’s going to be punished, he’ll fucking take the punishment like a man. If dad was faced with this choice, he would have taken ‘head’ too. There’s no way he’s going to be weaker than dad._

_Dad takes a deep breath and runs a tired hand over his face. “Very well. Are you ready?” Dad doesn’t wait for an answer._

_Luci’s hurled to the floor by the force of the blow. White dots dancing in his spinning field of vision. He can taste blood in his mouth from where he bit his tongue. He struggles to sit up. Dad’s hand rests gently on his shoulder as dad crouches down beside him. “I loathe that you force me to be the bad guy, Luci. I love you, and I really do not want to be the man you turn me into. Why can’t you just do what I ask of you?”_

_”Fuck you…” Luci mutters and tries to stand even though the room’s tilting on its axis. Part of him wants to hug dad and beg for forgiveness, wants to be comforted by no one else but dad. He hates that part of himself. He hates the neediness in him._

_Dad’s warm, big hand pushes at his shoulder, tries gently to keep him down without force, always always always leaving the door open for disobedience. His ice-blue eyes are concerned. “Stay down, Luci boy. Stand, and I will give you one more. I don’t want to do that. Stay down.”_

_There’s only one way to get what he wants from dad without forsaking his own wishes and needs. The others have long ago bent to dad’s demands, never needing to fear physical punishment. Not him. Never. He refuses to be weaker than dad. It takes fucking_ skill _to rile dad up enough to hit. Despite the warning Luci struggles to his feet. He knows the reward for it. Dad’s hand holds him by the upper arm to steady him. He meets dad’s gaze and for a moment he’s rewarded by a fierce glow of pride in dad’s eyes, dad’s nostrils flaring with it. The moment doesn’t last long, but it’s there, clear as day, as he defies both his reeling head, wobbly body, and dad. Pride. In him. He soaks it in like a flower soaks in the sun’s rays, turning it to strength and energy. He straightens up, shakes dad’s hand off and clasps his wrist behind his back again. “Fuck you.” Then comes the next punch…_

Claire’s crying by now. She’s going to leave makeup stains on the pillow. He couldn’t care any less. He cares that she’s trying not to cry, that she’s dug her feet into the couch between the armrest and seat pillow to keep still. That she’s fighting to _keep still_. He talks while he hits. “You’re doing good, darling. You take it with the strength of a good little bitch. I’m proud of you, baby. You’re not begging for mercy like some pathetic wimp that can’t face the consequences of their own actions. I knew you had it, Claire. The fire. The resilience. The self discipline.”

He stops, rubbing Claire’s ass soothingly. She’s shuddering, struggling to breathe properly.

“Have you received a spanking like this before, darling?... Speak up, baby, I want you to answer.”

“N-n-no.”

He hums in pleasure and refrains from moving his hips to get friction on his erection. He’ll have to settle for the way it’s poking at her. He warned her that he was going to enjoy it, but he hadn’t said anything about getting himself off on her. “I’ve got a name. Why don’t you use it?”

“Nick.”

He makes a low, disappointed sound. These days he’d like Dean to call him Luci. He hasn’t asked for it, and Nicky is fine enough. But it’s not _his_ name of intimacy. It’s too ingrained in Dean by now. Too late to change. Claire calling him that too will have to do. It’s the state of things. He isn’t doing this for his pleasure, after all.

Claire seems to think otherwise. She must have heard his little noise of disapproval. “Lucifer?”

He reaches out to stroke her over the scalp. “Mmh. You use whatever name you want to call me, like the little spitfire whore you are. You do realise that your defiance was a gift to me, don’t you? I wouldn’t have done this to you otherwise. But a threat isn’t a threat if unless it’s a promise, darling. And I like to keep my promises. You understand that, don’t you, Claire darling?”

Claire takes a few steadying breaths, then, “Yes, Luci.”

Luci sucks in air between his teeth, his dick giving a pleased little twitch she must have felt. “Good. I’m going to give you a few more hits, then we’re done. How many more can you take, sweetheart?”

“Four.”

If she had been a victim, _prey_ , he’d used that as a bare minimum. But she isn’t. “Mh. Very well. Except I need you to choose an odd number. Three or five, darling. I know your ass is on fire right now. I’m going to lift your skirt and inspect the damage, then deliver three or five more hits directly on your skin. How many can you handle?” 

“Five.”

Luci lets out a low pleased growl. The perfect answer. Claire’s breath is strained, wobbly, holding back from sobbing, yet she chooses the higher number. He’s been hitting hard. Even with his palm flat, there’s going to be bruising. Her skin should be white and raised surrounded by red. He can see how the skin on the back of her thighs has formed goosebumps from the pain. It can’t get much better. He lifts Claire’s skirt.

He was wrong. “Fuck,” he breathes.

He’d been right about the state of her ass cheeks. That isn’t what suddenly has him breathing rough for another reason than exertion, or why his heart’s hammering in feral glee. That certainly isn’t why Caire’s hiding her face so completely, nor why her neck is turning dark red.

She’s wearing simple forest green panties. Panties with a wet stain colouring them dark green between her legs. It sure as hell isn’t pee.

“Fuck, you’re perfect.”

He brings his hand down hard in quick succession―left, right, right, left, left―then covers her ass with her skirt again before he does something monumentally stupid that she’s given him no right to do. A pussy that wet under _these_ circumstances, belongs wrapped around his dick. Hot, slick, squeezing around him… The urge to taste her, smell her, is a physical need right now. He’s hard pressed to care why he shouldn’t. Except some things should be established beforehand. He isn’t ready to back down on his promise that he needs her consent, and hadn’t she smoked weed just before? That’s why he’s doing this in the first place. She’s still under his questionable protection. Since he can feel his own resolve waver, getting ripped at by the animal within, resistance lowered by the drug in his bloodstream, then she should get away from him before he does something _she_ will regret.

He manhandles her onto unsteady legs and twists her away from him with a grip on her hips. “All done, darling. You took that like a champion. But remember, the next time I might not go this easy on you. Now go to your room.”

Claire flees up the stairs surprisingly fast, he thinks. Maybe she feels how close he is to do to her what he shouldn’t. Consent is extremely important to him, just as he doesn’t give a rats ass about it, depending on who is the target. There are people, and there are _people_. Claire started out somewhere in between, and the longer he’s known her, the more she falls into the category that should be respected, but her actions make him feel obliged not to. 

He presses the heel of his palm against his erection, hisses in frustration and gets up from the couch. He shouldn’t be thinking of sex _at all_ right now. Not when there’s a wet pussy upstairs, belonging to a feisty minx. Not when his inhibitions are lowered by good weed. Weed, that is nicely mellowing. She’s lucky he hadn’t taken an upper like cocaine or amphetamine.

He goes to the kitchen, grabs the barely smoked joint on the counter, puts it in his mouth, digs up his lighter out of a pocket and lights it, then takes a long inhale that feels like pouring lead into his veins, but in a good way. He feels really fucking good right now. He goes outside to lie down on the grass, watching the clouds shift on the darkening sky.

He smokes the whole joint and replays Claire’s lovely reactions in his head. He knows he’s fucking high when a delighted little giggle escapes him unbidden. High, mellow, and horny as hell. But too relaxed to move.

He wonders what she’s doing right now?

Maybe crying? His hand still stings. Her ass sure as shit must be giving her hell. Tomorrow he’ll play tourist guide and show her New York, but tonight she can stew in misery. Maybe they’ll share a joint tomorrow? They could do that. He’s got her bag of weed still in his pocket. Mavis isn’t at home. They’ve got a three day weekend to enjoy. But now… now she’s probably… probably...

He digs up his phone and opens his surveillance app, then clicks on one of the cameras in her room.

She’s lying on her side, on the bed. Her skirt’s hitched around her belly. She looks pained, and she… she’s…

His heart takes an excited leap. He isn’t really certain he’s really seeing what he thinks he’s seeing so he switches to the window camera that shows her from the front.

“For the love of―!”

He fumbles with his button and zipper without a thought. She’s still wearing her panties, and is pressing one of the vibrators he bought her to her clitoris. He grabs his dick, pulls it out and starts stroking.

“Little minx, this better not be a hoax or you’re getting yourself in some serious trouble. Fuck, you’re perfect!”

Hot fireflies of arousal buzz all over in his veins. He jerks himself off, panting, staring transfixed. She can’t possibly get more perfect!

Her hips start moving in an undulating movement, pressing against the vibrator. He’d kill for sound. He could activate it, but he knows himself. He knows what he’d do if he got to hear her too. He’d want scent and touch too. He’s not that stupid. 

Her eyes are closed, wet pink mouth open against the pillow, the hand closest to the bed holding the vibrator. Her upper arm had moved from the bed to her breasts, now it’s moving again to― 

She slaps herself on the ass, jerking with the pain it causes.

Luci lets out a string of curses and jerks faster. He was wrong. She _could_ get more perfect.

When she slaps her abused ass one more time, then convulses, jackknifing around the vibrator with a silent scream, Luci follows her over the threshold, coming with a breathy moan himself. Adoring Claire for how she spasms in orgasm.

He’s too fucking high, sated, and pleased, to even begin to worry about the problems this is bound to bring…

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Please, leave a comment. :)


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